Inbound Marketing Blog

Are your marketing emails not performing quite as well as you might like in terms of click through rates and conversions? Improving email performance doesn’t have to mean completely overhauling your email templates or coming up with an entirely new email strategy. Sometimes making a few small changes can make a huge difference, particularly if they are ones that make your emails easier to read and more visually appealing.more

Every month you have thousands of potential students visiting your website, some of whom are probably putting together their college lists. Regardless of how amazing your site content is or how great your school's reputation is, a good chunk of these visitors are never going to interact with your school again —that is unless you gather some of their information.more

This weekend, my girlfriend and I went on a little camping trip to the Nordhouse dunes, located on the beautiful shore of Lake Michigan. The drive was about two hours long, and despite the "no work, relaxing weekend" rule that was put into place, my thoughts soon drifted to, well, my work. I promptly began having a passionate conversation with my significant other on the ins and outs of SEO and the collaborative effort that is needed to create a truly riveting content offer. After about twenty minutes of overly enthusiastic speech and gesticulation, I asked some nearly rhetorical question. Something like, "Isn't that just amazing?" Only to hear the same dull "mmhmm" I had been receiving for the duration of the trip. I turned to the love of my life in outright horror! How could she not be as ardent as I on the topic of digital marketing?! The interaction set my head spinning. I fell silent. I contemplated the repugnant reality I was living in. That's when it hit me! It wasn't that my girlfriend loathed digital marketing! It wasn't even that she found it dull! I had just been talking about it in the completely wrong way. I was using words she wasn't familiar with; I was over explaining simple concepts and under explaining complex ones; I was stomping through the conversation like a barbaric oaf, instead of dancing through it like a truly skilled conversationalist. I needed to make a change in the way I was talking about my industry. If your having trouble gaining traction with your blog or other website content, maybe you do to. Below are four tips I wrote down after my car ride so that I could more effectively talk to my clients, readers, and even my girlfriend about digital marketing. Take a look, apply them to your industry, and see what improvements you can make to your content.more

Yesterday I had a Monday morning from hell. You know, one of those Mondays where you have about a million things to do, but for some reason, every ounce of determination, self-discipline, and creative energy you've ever had has abandoned you? Yeah, it was that kind of Monday. I got to work early, sat down with a freshly brewed cup of coffee, opened my laptop aaaaaaaaannnnd nothing. Nothing at all. For about four hours I stared at my screen, writing and re-writing sentence after sentence and paragraph after paragraph until I looked up at the clock and called it. Lunch Break. I felt like I hadn't made any progress on only the first of about 20 tasks I needed to complete. And my impending stress seemed to be a further source of derision between the part of my brain responsible for issuing commands and the part of my brain following them. It was a rough morning. But it taught me something valuable. After downing a double shot of espresso and returning to my computer, I started to realize why I had been having so much trouble. I had not "flipped my switch." No matter what kind of writer you are, you almost certainly have some sort of voice. It may not be the most obvious of voices, in fact, it may not be evident at all, but trust me, it's there. My perception of my own voice lives somewhere between, fast-talking con artist and talk show host who laughs at his own jokes.more

The days where your college website could skate by on pure information and a design comparable to that of a hotel lobby brochure are long gone. You need a little more to make your website unique and appealing to the wide variety of people who visit it (alumni, current students, parents and especially prospective students). There are a plethora of website designs and content trends that you can experiment with to set your school’s website apart.more

Now, I don't want to brag or anything, but back in my college days I was quite the actor. Got the lead in the school play in fact. John Barrymore; I Hate Hamlet. You should look it up. I had dreams of becoming a famous movie star. I wanted to sing and dance on Broadway. But, sometime during my senior year, I realized that a lifetime of auditioning wasn't for me. Instead I became an Inbound Marketer.more

I was recently walking through the mall, doing some early scouting for the upcoming Christmas season. As I was turned a corner, I saw two employees tea shop employees standing in the entry way to their store, calling to oncoming customers. "Care to try some of our tea?" "Free samples." Being a tea lover myself and seeing that the shop may be able to offer me a few quick and easy gifts for stockings, I walked over to one of the employees and opted in on the tea tasting. This was a mistake.more

Recently I listened to a great speaker on the topic of blogging. Many examples were given to help explain how providing audiences with valuable content (in the form of blogs) would ultimately help generate leads. Filled with inspiration I hurried back to my office ready to work.more

Less is more. Quality over quantity. These old adages can hold true when it comes to gifts, interior decorating and ... digital marketing. Yes, you read that right. There are many instances in the world of digital and Inbound marketing, where quality is much more important than quality. For instance:more

If you have ever started a new job you know it can take awhile to feel like one of the team. There are references to specific customers and clients, inside jokes that coworkers make repeatedly, and random nuances to the rules and procedures that take some getting used to. The same adjustment period occurs when joining most new groups or cultures. But if you are lucky, someone reaches out and shows you the ropes. As an agency, we always suggest that our clients blog. Even if we are doing the majority of the blogging, it is always good to have someone writing about the business from the inside. Our clients' staff can always offer a perspective that we can't. With that in mind, I wanted to create a post giving our rogue bloggers out there an inside look at some of the tools being used by longtime content writers. Take a look.more

When I was 7 years old I went to a neighborhood picnic with my family. I was wandering around the dessert table when my mom came over to me and told me I could join the "three-legged race" that would be going on later in the night. Being a competitive little bugger (who would later become a runner) I was sure I would win, so I signed up and awaited glory. I had no idea what a three-legged race was. When I got to the starting line my smirk turned to a look of incredulity as I was strapped to another kid. I backtracked in my mind to see what I had missed. 'Race...I definitely heard race...but....three legs!' It was too late for me to back out now so I took my starting position and prepared myself to drag, shove, and carry the deadweight attached to my ankle across the finish line. I heard the word "go" and took off like a rocket.....I immediately fell to the ground as the weight of my "partner" held me fast. The race was lost on the first step, I knew it, the kid attached to me knew it, my older brother (laughing hysterically) knew it. I embraced defeat as any 7 year-old would, by shouting defiance at the world.more

By now most people have heard about the controversy surrounding Jared Leto's extensive method acting while on the set of Suicide Squad, gifting cast members with items like live rats and dead pigs. I think we can all agree that the guy took things way too far... that being said, there is something to say about his dedication to the character and role. He used method acting techniques to not just play his part—but live it. Why am I bringing this up? Recently, I have read a lot of blogs focused on how to reach buyer personas through content. A step-by-step list in one of these posts might look something like this: Step 1: Define your target demographics Step 2: What does a day in your buyer's life look like? Step 3: What are your buyer's problems or challenges? Step 4: What are your buyer's goals, problems, and challenges? Step 5: Where do your buyer's hang out? At least online. These blog posts are incredibly valuable (in fact, we have created a few like them), but like so many pieces of content out there, they tell you how to do something without actually...well telling you how to do it. Finding out your buyers goals is an important step to take, but discovering those goals doesn't mean anything if you don't understand why they are there in the first place.more

I am a huge fan of superheroes - Superman, Batman, X-Men; I love them all. So any chance I get to make a superhero analogy I take it, and I think this is one of those chances, so bear with me.more

Investing in an Inbound Marketing plan can be a big step, so naturally, it raises a few questions and concerns. I asked our Business Development Manager some of the questions he is asked most frequently when having conversations with potential clients about Inbound Marketing plans.more

My girlfriend likes to test me from time to time. She likes to subtly slip little questions into our everyday conversation to see if I know things. Her favorite color, favorite animal, what kind of ice cream she likes best (trick question, she's lactose intolerant). Over the years, I have gotten pretty good at paying attention to the little stuff and answering these questions without a second thought... but for some reason, I never know what to get her for her birthday.more

more

You have been told time and time again that blogging can help drive traffic to your website, but the problem is, no one ever seems to tell you how to drive traffic to your blog post. And if your blog post isn't receiving views, how is it supposed to help your website?more

more

In the Wild West (or at least how it's portrayed in the movies) the "good guys" wore white cowboy hats and the "bad guys" wore black cowboys hats. But "white hats" and "black hats" aren't just for the Wild West anymore, now they show up in the technology sphere. Recently, the term "black hat" has been used to describe computer hackers, virus creators, and others who perform unethical actions with computers. Some of these unethical actions can include aggressive SEO tactics, like:more

more