A List of Microblogging Tools for Business

Feb 6 2010

Effective collaboration within a team or business is essential for success. But it is very hard to do.  Sometimes it seems that the growth of the Internet has expanded the amount of information available so much that it’s impossible to see the meaning through the clutter.

Now the microblogging world of 140 character updates has led to some collaboration tools that can really help a business get its act together. Collaboration tools built on microblogging, file sharing and publishing, and social networking are evolving rapidly into always on, always ready productivity boosters for teams, businesses and supply chain partners. These are not all glittering high cost custom installations either – you can get free versions of some software or you can just sign up for Twitter for a really basic version.

Twitter has served as a testing bed for how this strange but powerful form of communication can work.  Twitter, its users and application developers have pushed the Twitter basic model to improve its collaboration value.  In Twitter you can set up a private account or list to define a group.  A conversation can be created by defining and promoting a #hashtag.  Or you could use a 3rd party application like GroupTweet or Twibes to find or define a group.

But these basic tools leave out essential capabilities needed to make collaboration more effective.  Dedicated collaboration tools have progressed to a much more sophisticated level.  Most of the better ones include many features that help groups communicate and collaborate:

  • A method to define a group that is private or limited to members only.  The power of privacy controls varies across products, but all of them recognize the importance of security.
  • Status updates using the 140-character standard are basic. Products vary somewhat in how internal groups can be defined.
  • Most include internal publishing tools like blogs, wikis, discussion boards, and spreadsheets.
  • File sharing is common.
  • Some services are web based; some can be hosted on the client’s server.
  • Services publish to common mobile platforms for on-the-go collaboration.
  • Set up feeds on information streams.  Services vary on the extent of customization permitted.

Here are a few of the more promising microblogging collaboration platforms for business (leaving out SalesForce Chatter and Google Wave for now – they are unfinished products).  These platforms have a free version that offers somewhat fewer services but more importantly, less security and administrative control.  Most are priced on a per-seat basis, with $3/user a common price.

Yammer.  One of the most established collaboration platforms, Yammer was the Techcrunch50 winner in 2008.  This service was instantly popular – and it has spawned a lot of competitors.  Anyone can sign up and invite co-workers to share the social platform, but control over the group and its members requires a subscription.  Yammer has an especially strong security system for paying customers. It is integrated with Twitter, publishes to mobile, and is integrated with Outlook email.

Cubetree.  A web service only, Cubetree is distinguished by its emphasis on integrating the services in its platform and also integrating common social media services like Twitter, Facebook, Salesforce and Google Calendar. Cubetree the elements of the system through email when it’s important for a user to get a specific message.  For example, a status update aimed at a specific @person will also trigger an email to that person.  Cubetree is supported by venture funding.

Socialtext.  Aimed at enterprise businesses, Socialtext offers both a web service and an ‘appliance’-based service.  This service includes all the basic features of a microblog-based collaboration tool, but adds available solutions packages for certain types of business organizations, including HR, sales, field services, partner management, and professional services.  Socialtext has both web based and hosted applications at a slightly higher price point that other platforms.

Jive.  Jive is the David among Goliaths.  It is a small company based in Portland, OR that has grown its service internally.  Jive offers a basic version of its web service for $3/user, but encourages contacting them for custom pricing for larger companies and for the higher security packages.  Interestingly, Jive recently acquired Filtrbox, a social media listening platform.  The value here would be to have the Filtrbox application identify the posts and updates about a company and then distribute them through Jive to the right people for a response.  That’s a complete circle.

Would your business benefit from better collaboration?  It’s hard to imagine anyone saying ‘no’ to that.  These tools might help – and we’d love to hear your thoughts about them.

Posted by GlennSilloway on February 6, 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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Are You an Online Marketing Winner?

Jan 30 2010

I was talking to my good friend and fellow runner the other day about the difference between winners and losers. And let me tell you, she knows a lot about this topic. As an elite marathoner, this gal knows how to win. She said the single biggest factor (other than a dose of natural talent and some crazy mental toughness) is consistency. Taking the steps, day in and day out, that are required to succeed. Ah-ha! This simple piece of advice resonated with me both as an online marketer and as a runner. Being a successful online marketer is a lot like being a great athlete.

My takeaway from the conversation was this:

Winners repeat the right things over and over, knowing the outcomes will improve.
Losers do something once or twice, figure it didn’t work, and never do it again.

Let’s not confuse this with the definition of insanity, which is repeating the same mistakes over and over expecting a different outcome. In online marketing there are certain actions one must undertake time and time again, often over several weeks and months, before a desired result is achieved. Creating content, building links, participating in social media, improving the conversion process on your website, nurturing leads through email, analyzing analytics data, are some of these actions.

To win in online marketing you’ve got to remain steadfastly dedicated to performing the tasks that will eventually build your rankings, increase traffic, and boost your sales. Does that mean you keep doing something that’s obviously going nowhere? Of course not! But don’t assume that because you don’t see dramatic results the first time you try something that it’s dead in the water.

Look for increasingly incremental improvements in rankings, traffic, conversions and as long as that improvement is growing steadily, keep it up!

Posted by CristiSpahr on January 30, 2010 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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An Oxymoron: Facebook Privacy

Dec 12 2009

Facebook’s new “privacy policy” is geared to make your Facebook activity less private. John Battelle’s pithy summary is “This is a big deal.  Facebook is taking the final step to become more like Twitter.”

With the new policy you will have more granular control over who sees what in your profile, right down to controlling who sees each update, but you have to act to exercise this capability–it’s not the default.  Also, now for the first time, some of your profile information is now public, meaning all 350 million FB subscribers can search for it and see it.  You cannot change the settings for this public information.

In doing this, Facebook is taking on a tricky balancing act.  On the one hand, they want to make the platform more open because it will be easier for Search Engines to spider the content, more appealing to application developers, and easier for advertisers to get information about you.  On the other hand, the reason Facebook has all that delicious information about you in the first place is that it’s shared only with your network of friends.  Opening that up to the world might not be such a good thing for you.

Full Publicity is the New Default

Let’s get clear about this.  Facebook’s new policy is aimed at making their network more open and more public, more, well, Twitter-like.  The default settings in your privacy controls were reset to the broadest public sharing settings and these are what Facebook is recommending. As ReadWriteWeb puts it,  you have to opt out.  As you’ll see below, it isn’t that easy to figure out your privacy settings option, and the surface options FB gives you aren’t really all there is to it.  A little deceptive.

Most bloggers that have been following the latest Facebook flap are not surprised at this change.  Facebook has publicly announced its intention to develop new privacy guidelines (back in July 2009), having learned a thing (maybe not two) from the ill-fated Beacon experiment.

But more broadly, it’s been clear for sometime that Facebook is struggling to open up its network.   One takeaway from Jeremiah Owyang’s recent post on Facebook’s open strategy shifts is that the big players (Facebook, Google, Twitter, Yahoo! and so forth) are all converging on a huge social network platform in which social profiles (your online identity, remember?) are linked and shared across platforms – and opened up more to companies who want to know all about you.  Yes, Virginia, there is a privacy issue.

Civil Libertarians Don’t Like It

The Guardian newspaper published an article focused on civil libertarians concerns about the changes.  From the Electronic Frontier Foundation to the American Civil Liberties Union, watchdogs are concerned about the loss of privacy.  At its core, the problem is that there are now some things that are considered public in Facebook that were not before.

For instance, did you know that some applications that run on Facebook (like polls and most games) get access to your profile information?  They can use this to connect you with people you don’t know, and may expose some of your profile in the process. Or, someone in your Friend list who opts in to one of these applications may expose your information to others without you knowing it. Facebook is now posting an explanation of the new policy. You can link to this (as of right now) from your update box where you select how to distribute the post.

Facebook Privacy Explanation 12 December 2009

In other words, all Facebook subscribers expose at least some information about themselves to the public: “your publicly available information and information you share with Everyone.”  Do you want to?

Facebook Misleads

In Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s December 9th letter posted to his profile and then shared with all of us, he claims the change gives us more control over who sees information we share.  This is partly true.

The plan we’ve come up with is to remove regional networks completely and create a simpler model for privacy control where you can set content to be available to only your friends, friends of your friends, or everyone.

We’re adding something that many of you have asked for — the ability to control who sees each individual piece of content you create or upload. In addition, we’ll also be fulfilling a request made by many of you to make the privacy settings page simpler by combining some settings. If you want to read more about this, we began discussing this plan back in July.

Whoops!  Not so, Mark!  Now, you can share SOME of my information with anyone.  Coupled with the default option being strongly biased to making all information public, this puts the burden of protecting privacy more on the individual subscriber.

Take Care of Your Information

It’s going to be up to you to manage your information.  Here’s some starter steps, and good luck!

First, this is the image we all saw when Facebook rolled out the changes.  It just asks you to go to the next page to set your privacy settings.

Facebook Privacy Announcement

Facebook Privacy Announcement

The next page looks like you’ve hit paydirt until you read it. You find that the default buttons selected for you are all for the most open, public options.  And your only real choice is the

Profile (ONLY) Privacy Settings

Profile (ONLY) Privacy Settings

You can see I moved mine back to the “old settings” even though I’m a little hazy on what those are.  Rolling over the radio buttons gives you an info box that tells you what the setting means, but it’s not too helpful anyway.  The main problem is that these settings only control the profile sharing.  They do not affect other factors, like applications sharing (many Facebook applications use your profile information, so they collect LOTS of information about you and about people you never heard of and share it around).

You have to go on to yet another screen that is not automatically suggested in this misleading exercise Facebook designed.  Go to the upper right ‘Settings’ drop down and select Privacy Settings – the next screen looks like this:

Facebook Privacy Settings for All Functions

Facebook Privacy Settings for All Functions

This is where you can set the privacy you want, with limits.  As noted above, you cannot keep people from seeing certain information about you if you have a Facebook account.

I’m not sure how the publicly shared information will be used.  Clearly, even knowing your location and gender gives important information to others. But I’m guessing the more potent marketing uses will involve searching and filtering your public information to make targeted lists.  Think about it:  you belong to a network, you live in a certain place, and your friends’ list includes others whose public information is also available.  It’s not too hard to imagine someone collecting and analyzing this data.

What’s your take on the new Facebook?

Posted by GlennSilloway on December 12, 2009 | Comments (1) | Trackbacks
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Where is Content Development on Your Priority List?

Dec 1 2009

Too many companies underestimate the power of content as it relates to attracting more business online. They fail to put the necessary resources toward content development on the web and instead spend all of their time and effort (and money!) on cool designs and flashy features.  Don’t get me wrong, great design is essential but content is the single most important ingredient in a recipe that attract prospects to your website.

If you want your website to work as it should, anticipate the needs and wants of your prospects and produce content that delivers answers and solutions to their most pressing concerns.  Content can take the shape of a blog post, an article, a guide, a webinar, a video, or any number of other variations.  Produce your content in a variety of formats and cover the most popular topics that relate to your company’s offerings.

Tip: When thinking about content for your site or blog, always put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Think about how your customers will find you, what their interests are, and what will be entertaining and appealing to them.

In the end, the content you create should be useful, trustworthy, and relevant to the buyer’s place in their purchase process.  Understand how your customer buys then think about the type of content you can create to help move your prospect along their buying cycle toward your product or service — all the while creating content that is completely focused on the user (not you).  This approach will result in more leads and sales for your company and prospects that keep on coming.

Need help with content development?  Check out our content development services or request a meeting to discuss your needs with us.

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Posted by CristiSpahr on December 1, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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How Will New Google Product Listing Ads Affect Your Business?

Nov 24 2009

Google recently announced that it is expanding their product ads within their AdWords listing with a new feature called Product Listing Ads.  This feature is in response to the widespread use of Google as a product purchase tool.  Many people use Google as a shopping tool to research specific products and where to buy them. Google’s Product Listing Ads work within Google Merchant Center where an advertiser can create highly targeted ads featuring rich product information, such as product image, price, and merchant name.

A significant benefit of Product Listing Ads is that businesses are only charged on cost-per-action (CPA) basis. Therefore, you will only pay if a user clicks on the ad and completes the purchase process on the website. Because Product Listing Ads is charged on a CPA basis, it offers a risk-free way for businesses to reach a larger audience on Google.com.

Another benefit of Product Listing Ads is that you don’t have to use keywords or additional ad text. If a searcher enters a query that is relevant to a product in your Google Merchant Center Account, he will automatically see the most relevant products along with image, price and product name. Here are two examples:

Google Product Listing Ads

Google plans to expand the service however, currently the product listing ad is a Beta feature available to a limited number of retail advertisers. Over time, Google will increase number of users who can see the ads as well as the ones who can advertise their product.

Looking for some help with your Google AdWords campaign?  Request a Meeting and let’s discuss!

Posted by CristiSpahr on November 24, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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The 6 “Ins” of Effective Inbound Marketing

Nov 17 2009

The Internet has changed the game in the world of marketing.

nternet marketing strategies, inbound marketing, internet marketing planning, effective internet marketing

Individuals are using the Internet in ways that take the power away from marketers and put it into the hands of buyers.  We believe that the single most effective way to deal with today’s marketing environment is to embrace the idea of inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing is essentially another term to describe permission-based marketing.  In a nutshell inbound marketing works by attracting interested prospects to your business by publishing, optimizing, and promoting valuable content online.  That content, which is relevant to what you offer, is “called up” by interested prospects when they’re actively seeking it.

The buying process of today’s customers is enabled by the Internet and allows prospective customers to search, interact, and buy on their terms, not yours.

When formulating your internet marketing strategy to leverage the “inbound” concept, wrap your brain around these six ideas:

1.    Individual – Unlike traditional marketing that involves pushing your message out to a mass group of people in the hopes that someone will be interested, inbound marketing is about connecting with individuals who have specifically sought out information related to what you offer. The individual determines the basis of the relationship they will have with your company – from the initial search on Google down to the method they’ll use to purchase. Recognizing that the power lies in the hands of the individual is something effective internet marketers understand.

2.    Information – Considering that the Internet is formed by information, it’s no wonder you’ll find this word among the keys to effective inbound marketing.  Your prospects will go online in search of information that facilitates their buying process. Sometimes this information is straightforward, such as finding product pricing and specifications.  Other times, they seek information that is further removed from the end purchase.  For example, prospects who visit this website are often looking for information on how to build an internet marketing plan. They’re not necessarily ready to hire an internet marketing agency but if I can be the source of information related to internet marketing planning, then why wouldn’t they consider Spark when it’s time to hire?

3.    Involvement – Effective internet marketers are active in online communities where they can establish a commonality and relationship with their customers and prospects.  Social media websites that involve sharing information, participating in conversations, and publishing useful content offer important ways for marketers to be involved.

4.    Invitation – By this, we mean you’d better follow the golden rule of today’s inbound marketing — wait to be invited.  Don’t barrage unexpecting individuals with unsolicited or unwanted messages. Instead, wait for an invitation.  Invitations in the online world happen when prospects sign up to receive your newsletter, download a free guide from your website, register for your webinar, download a free trial, follow you on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, or otherwise raise their hands and offer up their personal contact information.  These inquiries are invitations of sorts that give you the permission you need to start an appropriate dialogue.

5.    Integration – There is deep level of integration that can take place between inbound marketing strategies. Leverage such opportunities in order to optimize your presence online.  For example, Twitter is not a standalone microblogging website.  It’s a tool that can interact with LinkedIn, Facebook, and your own website. It can be used to share content, listen to your customers, participate in your industry, and build your presence in the search engines. When you build your internet marketing plan to maximize integration, you’ll get more bang for your internet marketing buck.

6.    Intelligence – What good is any type of marketing without the intelligence to measure, analyze, and optimize your efforts? Intelligence tools abound in the world of internet marketing. Google Analytics and other lead intelligence and lead tracking tools offer valuable information to help your internet marketing program generate the leads and sales you seek.   Always be thinking about how you’ll gain intelligence from everything you do online so that you can make it better over time.
When you understand and buy into these 6 “ins” you’re ready to start creating an effective inbound internet marketing strategy.

Need help creating an inbound internet marketing plan that attracts prospects, generates leads, and converts sales?  Request a meeting to discuss your needs.  Also, be sure to download our free SEO Guide or our free Inbound Internet Marketing Guide.

Posted by CristiSpahr on November 17, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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Still Wondering Why You Should “Do” Social Media?

Nov 1 2009

Overcome Social Media Confusion & Generate More Leads

Social media serves an important, yet often misunderstood, role in inbound marketing success.  No doubt, many companies feel that they should “do” social media, yet I find that many business owners and marketers are confused and apprehensive about implementing a social media campaign.

In the business-to-business world, especially, social media conjures up thoughts of posting holiday photos on Facebook, making silly movies for YouTube, or wondering who’s going to write all of those blog posts.  And for many business owners, the blood pressure starts to rise at the sound of the word Twitter.

Relax. It need not be so overwhelming.

Have content.  Will socialize.

Any discussion of social media must begin with content.

From an inbound marketing standpoint, the most effective way to use social media is as a content promotion tool.  When you create and optimize content that your prospects will value and you publish or share that content through social media, you will begin to understand the social media hype.   (Of course you won’t just talk about your own content – you’ll also share other people’s great content, comment on other content, and share ideas that don’t involve self promotion.  Yet, without your own content to add to the mix, you won’t get the social media results you seek.)

What kind of content do you need?

Articles, press releases, videos, presentations, webinars, eBooks, guides, whitepapers, blog posts, free trials, free demos, and just about any other type of content can be promoted through social media.  A video can be posted on YouTube, a presentation can be shared on SlideShare, a webinar can be promoted via Facebook, an eBook can be promoted with an online press release, an authority article can be submitted to any number of article submission websites, your latest blog post can be tweeted on Twitter, and a free trial offer can be promoted to your LinkedIn network.  Use keyword research to explore topics for your content.

Clearly, if you’re going to get serious about social media, you must also get serious about content. Without it you will continue to sit on the sidelines wondering if you’ll ever “do social media.”

3 Reasons to Love Social Media

With content in hand you’re ready to experience the benefits of social media.

For companies looking to build their business through inbound marketing, participation in social media can bring 3 primary benefits:

1.    Social media brings more traffic to your website.
Social media gives you more opportunity to be found by people who are looking for information related to what you offer.  And as more people find you, your traffic will grow.  Probably the best and most common way to build traffic with social media is through a blog.  Your business blog gives you an easy platform with which to create and publish content on wide range of topics.  When built correctly, the structure of a blog is naturally well-optimized for search engines and when you use good SEO practices in writing your blog, you can gain an immediate presence in the search engine results pages.

Create blog posts about a variety of niche topics that are of interest to your target market and you’ll give yourself lots of opportunities to attract high quality traffic to your site.   (Note: Your blog should be built into your website, not a separate domain.)

2.    Social media helps you generate more leads.

If you’re a B2B marketer, you are no doubt interested in lead generation.  In fact, if you’re like most B2B marketers you don’t even want to talk about marketing unless it involves lead gen.  Well, say no more.  When done right, social media can be a powerful lead generation tool.  The key, of course, is to create content that is so compelling that a prospect becomes willing to give up their anonymity in order to access it.  And once you have that compelling content in place, promote it through social media and tie it back to a landing page that captures lead information and fulfills your offer.

A webinar is a great example of using valuable content to generate leads. When you create and promote a webinar that is chock full of free and useful information, you can build a nice list of leads (through the webinar registration).  Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, your website, and press release submissions are usually great ways to promote lead-generating content, such as webinars.

3.    Social media helps you build more links.
Links. Perhaps no other word in the world of internet marketing generates more conversation and debate.  Yet, one thing is certain: Links are a critical factor in building your website’s search engine rankings and traffic.  Keyword-rich links from other high quality relevant websites to your website are the kinds of links you want.  The more, the better.

So, how can you build links through social media?

My favorite way is to create content that your prospects and customers will want to share!  (I told you, it all comes back to content.)  When people share your content with others through social media, you get more links. Bloggers can write about your content, Twitter users can tweet your content, Digg users can digg your content, etc.  Sure, not all links will lead to SEO credit, but only good can result from putting out great content that others want to share.  If not for direct SEO credit, how about for traffic and lead generation?  Links can do all of that and more.

There are many other ways to build links in social media, including submitting articles and press releases to submission sites, building profiles on social media sites, commenting on other blogs, and participating in Q&As.

In short, while the social media topic has been played out ad nauseam in the online marketing community confusion and apprehension among business owners is still alive and well.  Only by understanding the role of social media and making a commitment to content can B2Bers experience the positive effects of social media lead generation.

Want to talk about social media for your company? Request a meeting or call me at (800) 474-1573.

Interested in learning more about inbound marketing?  Request our free Inbound Marketing Guide here.

Posted by CristiSpahr on November 1, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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Marketing on Facebook: Create Fans, Earn Customers

Oct 29 2009

More and more businesses are leaping into social media as an effective and inexpensive tool to reach potential buyers. As many already know, the benefits of using Facebook are numerous. It can be a great resource for generating brand awareness and building relationships with your clients and prospects. Using Facebook applications can be an exciting way to communicate promotions or events and provides an opportunity to find consumers you may have not otherwise discovered. One of the most effective ways to use Facebook is through its Fan Page application.

Like a personal Facebook profile, a Fan Page can be enhanced with applications that help your business communicate with and engage your fans. Available pages include a business profile, photos, and a discussion board. Pages can be informational and fun, thus creating relationships and connections. Facebook pages are easy to set up and manage.

Unlike the Facebook Group Page, a Fan Page caters towards clients looking to learn more about your business or new products. The pages are interactive and enable users to share your business and products with other Facebook users. By creating a fan page, you are virtually attracting a crowd to your business. This is applicable to individual clients as well as business-to-business networking.

When someone becomes a fan of your business, your icon is posted on his or her wall. Hundreds of friends of your fan will be exposed to your business when visiting your fans’ page. Moreover, when fans interact with the Fan Page, stories that are linked to your page are passed on to their friends via News Feed. One of the most valuable features is that businesses can send “updates” about new products and content to fans and the brand becomes even more visible.

Fan Pages are public and unlike a personal page, anyone can check out your fan page. Because of this, search engines can index your page. Happily this leads to SEO credit upping your Google ranking.  Speaking of SEO, check out our free SEO guide, “5 Things You Have to Get About SEO.”

Posted by CristiSpahr on October 29, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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How to Use Inbound Marketing to Attract More Prospects Online

Oct 22 2009

The Internet has transformed the nature of marketing. It has created a virtual funnel of information that your customers control. In order to remain competitive, your business must be able to be found on the web by prospects that are specifically looking for information about what YOU have to offer. Inbound marketing works by attracting prospects with targeted information that they are seeking out, not ignoring.

Traditional marketing – cold calling, trade shows, mass mailing, print advertising, etc. focuses on finding customers. Inbound Marketing is focused on being found by customers.  For example:

  • Instead of interrupting people with television ads no one wants to watch, inbound marketers create videos that potential customers seek out.
  • Instead of buying expensive print ads in magazines and newspapers, inbound marketers create a blog that people subscribe to and anticipate reading.
  • Instead of irritating cold calls, inbound marketers create useful content and exciting tools that people want to know more about.

The most successful Inbound Marketing campaigns have four key components:

(1) Content – Content is king in the Internet world.  It is the information or products that attract potential customers to your website or your business.

(2) Search Engine Marketing – Search Engine Marketing refers to a group of strategies that help you attract potential customers through the search engines. Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Click advertising, and Local Search Marketing serve to make your content and your business easier to find.

(3) Social Media Marketing – Popular examples of Social Media are Facebook, You Tube, and Twitter (although these are not necessarily right for every business). Social media is the equivalent of yesterday’s PR campaign. Its objective is to share information, ideas, and experiences, to network and interact with people, and to publish content that is relevant to a particular audience.

(4) A Conversion-Oriented Website: What’s the point of attracting all of these prospects if you can’t convert them to leads or sales?  Your website is the hub of all marketing, and especially Internet marketing.  It is the place where your prospects initially or ultimately go to request information, contact you, or make a purchase.

Today’s Inbound Marketing is fast paced and always changing.  Keeping up with the latest techniques is a constant but rewarding challenge. Spark Inbound Marketing offers inbound marketing services that include website design and development, content writing, search engine optimization, social media marketing, and more.

To learn more about Inbound Marketing, download our free 16-page guide: “The Power of In: Inbound Marketing to Attract Results” or request a free marketing consultation.

Posted by CristiSpahr on October 22, 2009 | Comments (1) | Trackbacks
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7 Tips to Generate More Leads from Your Website

Oct 7 2009

Your website is the hub of all of your marketing efforts, whether you intend it or not.  Print advertising, email marketing, direct mail, public speaking, search marketing, and just about any other marketing tactic naturally or overtly leads people to your website.

So what happens when prospects come to your web site?  Are they compelled to tell you who they are? Or do they vanish without a trace?

When it comes to turning your website into a lead-generation machine, here are 7 tips:
1.    Create Compelling Content

Give your prospects a reason to stay on board with your website. Interesting and compelling content lends credibility, trust, and authority to your company – not to mention it’s often what gets people to your site to begin with!  The importance of content simply cannot be understated. If you’re having trouble creating the great content you need to make your lead generation dreams a reality, look into hiring a content writing service (there’s a link to ours).

2.    Make it Easy

Make it easy for your prospects to become a customer or at least, to tell you who they are.  It’s amazing how many websites we visit that literally make it HARD to become a customer.  Make sure your key conversion links are easy to find.  Build your website so that it’s easy for people to find their way around.  Every page should be just a click away.  Finally, use headers to draw people into the content of each page and use bullets, subheads, and shorter paragraphs to make your content easy to digest.

3.    Develop Great Offers

Website lead generation is all about giving people a reason to raise their hands and tell you who they are.  So why would someone want to communicate with you instead of navigating anonymously around your website?   Because you have offered them something that is so compelling, valuable, and interesting that they are happy to exchange their anonymity for it.  Your offer could be a free trial, a free whitepaper, a free webinar, a free consultation, or any number of other offers.  Put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer and ask yourself what would make you respond.

4.    Promote Your Great Offers

Coming up with an offer is great, but you’ve got to promote the offer on your website in a way that grabs attention.  Create an ad and place it on your website in a conspicuous place.  Also, mention your offers alongside relevant content within your website (this can include your blog).  Test the placement and wording of your offer to ensure you’re maximizing your lead generation potential.

5.    Stay above the Fold

Make it easy for your customers to complete your lead generation goal by keeping response forms, offers, and primary calls-to-action above the fold so the user won’t have to scroll down to find them.  This is a little thing that can make a big difference in your lead generation response.

6.    Use Landing Pages & Conversion Forms

When you create an offer, you’ll want to link that offer to a landing page where the actual lead conversion will occur.  A typical landing page contains details about the offer and a “conversion” form (response form) that your visitors will complete before receiving whatever it is you’ve offered.  For example, if your offer is a free trial, your visitors will go to a landing page where they’ll learn more about the free trial, submit their contact information through a conversion form, and then gain access to the free trial itself.  Landing pages are designed to maximize conversions by stripping away “exit paths” and keeping your visitor focused on completing your desired goal.  Here’s an example of a landing page that promotes our Free SEO Guide.

7.    Integrate Lead Tracking & Intelligence Tools

What good is all this lead generation stuff without a mechanism to gain useful information about individual leads and track them as they turn into actual customers?  There are so many great lead tracking and intelligence tools out there.  The most popular tool for inbound marketers is HubSpot’s inbound marketing software.  With HubSpot, you can measure your website traffic, capture and manage leads, and tie lead generation efforts directly to sales outcomes.

Any discussion of lead generation must also include a reference to lead nurturing, which is what happens AFTER your leads are captured.  Through lead nurturing you are staying in front of your leads with interesting and relevant content, tied to compelling offers, that helps move your lead along the purchase path toward your products or services.   We’ll be talking about lead nurturing a lot as this blog grows, so stay tuned.

And hey, don’t forget: a lead-generating website is just one of the many inbound marketing success components.  Learn more about inbound marketing by downloading our Free Guide: “The Power of In: Inbound Marketing for Success.” If you want to talk specifics, please request a free marketing consultation.

Posted by CristiSpahr on October 7, 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks
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