Business Growth Blog

If you ask any stand up comedian what the most difficult part of his or her job is, they might say, “Reading the room.”

This phrase refers to the comedian's ability to analyze information from the audience and use that information to improve their act. They have to be able to perceive what jokes people are loving and what jokes aren't hitting the mark, so they can factor that into the rest of the set.

On a base level, inbound marketing has to be able to do the exact same thing.

Just like a comedian, a marketer has to to know what their audience will be into and what they will likely ignore. It makes sense if you think about it: you can't appeal to an audience that you don't understand.

So what is the best way to understand what your readers want? To many inbound marketers, it's content curation.

Simply put, content curation is finding and sharing articles with your audience. What exactly does that mean to a business owner? It means that if you know how to curate valuable content and analyze your audience's response, then you can learn what interests your current readers and what can potentially attract new ones.

The importance of a quality logo is obvious: it's the first thing people associate with your company. Despite this, many companies have messy, confusing logos that don't attract attention. A base knowledge of 4 types of logos can help you understand how different styles function. More importantly, it can help you decide which logo type will express your brand's vision.

These are 4 logo styles that are most commonly used. While you look through the list, think about what styles stand out to you the most, and how each style might change how you brand your company.

One fall day I jumped on my bike (bicycle that is) to take a nice 15 mile ride in Northern Michigan. As I was enjoying the fall colors, I turned on my tunes to Octane on Sirius radio. The DJ was interviewing Flyleaf about their new album, Between the Stars.

As I was listening to the interview, a thought popped into my head: these songs are content, with a goal of driving a following and increasing sales.

That's the same exact thing any company needs to do: Create content that drives followers and sales.

This is a true story about how a company’s website design almost cost them a deal with a Fortune 500 company. (Names and company have been changed to protect privacy.)

Sam, a salesperson (whom we’ll call Seller Sam), had a meeting with Bill, a contact from a Fortune 500 company (whom we’ll call Buyer Bill). The meeting was going great - until Buyer Bill went to Seller Sam’s company website.

For most companies, changing their marketing strategies takes a significant investment in time and money. It’s a culture change.

With 61% of global Internet users researching products online, it seems like it would make sense to invest in developing a strong online presence (awesome website, blogging, social media, email marketing, downloadable content offers, etc.).

But is it really necessary for every company to go down that path? Perhaps not. Here are 4 reasons to NOT do inbound marketing:

Most salespeople know they need to use a CRM (a Customer Relationship Management system, or sales database), but they dread it. It can easily seem like a bunch of time consuming data entry – and if it’s not set up right, it is. HubSpot recently did a survey, and found that on average, reps spend 1 hour and 32 minutes per day doing data entry. Yuck!

On the flip side, reps do need some way to manage all of their prospects, leads, and opportunities. And sales managers need ways to efficiently track forecasting and sales. If you think CRM is a pain, try doing it without a CRM!

Most modern marketers will tell you that you need to invest in inbound marketing activities (blogging, email marketing, and social media) to get new customers. It will drive website traffic and leads, and your company will grow by leaps and bounds.

That is true, but what they might not tell you is that it takes time for that method alone to start generating high quality leads (and it will never generate them if you miss the mark on the kind of content you're creating). What are you supposed to do in the meantime?

We know that traditional marketing activities, like cold calling and direct mail, aren't very effective for the amount of effort you have to put in. That leaves most companies in a conundrum. They walk a fine line between traditional and modern marketing and feel frustration that nothing seems to be working.

I recently introduced you to my ideal monthly inbound marketing plan. If you want to get the fastest results with the maximum amount of help and support, it's definitely the way to go – hands down. If you do that plan, you'll have qualified sales leads, shorter sales cycles, and increased revenue in no time.

However, there is an issue with that plan that I'd like to address – it can be too much of an investment in time and money for a small company.

I was recently contacted by a company that needed some help fixing a problem they were having with their marketing. When I looked at their analytics, I was quite shocked. This is what I saw:

*Disclaimer:Ascend Business Growth was not involved in these results!

My contact (we’ll call her Sally) said that things were going pretty smoothly, but about a year-and-a-half ago they decided to take it up a notch. They hired a company to help them with their marketing strategies, including blogging and social media.

Sally was expecting things to increase at a faster rate, but unfortunately the scale tilted the wrong way. What the heck happened?

The main way to generate leads online is to put forms on your website. It goes beyond the "contact" form. Anytime you have a valuable content offer to share with your target audience, you can ask for information in order to download it.

The data you collect on the forms can be used to guide prospects through the buyer journey. You can use it to properly qualify leads to either send them to the appropriate sales rep or put them back in the bucket for more lead nurturing.

If you collect the right information about your prospects in the right way, you can use it to create targeted messaging that will keep the sales momentum going. However, I frequently see mistakes on website forms that make the data collected very difficult or impossible to use.