Inbound Marketing Blog

Do you have plenty of people going to your website, but leaving before doing anything? Has this led to you believe that your website is a useless marketing tool for your business? Before you tell your IT team to hit the “DELETE” button on your website file server, let’s walk through a couple things to determine if a there may be a simple fix for getting your website heading in the right direction.more

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Sometimes the proof isn't in the pudding at all -- it's in the numbers. If you understand the powerful data behind Inbound Marketing, you might realize it's worth a second glance. While it's not as familiar as some of the traditional outbound marketing tactics, it's actually much more effective. By the numbers, Inbound Marketing has Outbound beat. 1. Inbound Leads are 61% Cheaper than Outbound Leads Maybe you enjoy watching your ROI plummet and your bank account balance dwindle as you throw more money at television advertisements or outbound calls. But we're guessing you don't. When you spend money on marketing, you want it to come back to you -- with interest. That's exactly what Inbound Marketing provides. According to a Business2Community infographic, Inbound leads are 61% cheaper than Outbound leads. In other words, you spend less money to gain each lead, which means you can divert that cash to other (money-making) pursuits. 2. 44% of Shoppers Start with a Search When was the last time you considered a potential purchase? If you think back to the moment the idea first occurred to you, you'll probably recall pulling up your browser and Googling it. Your customers act the same way. They don't want to buy a product off the shelf or purchase a serivce unless they know how much it costs, what its features are, and whether it has gotten good reviews. All this focus on search makes Inbound Marketing king, especially since 44% of shoppers begin the buying journey with a simple search. 3. 80% of Business Buyers Prefer Content to Ads If you think inbound marketing only works for B2C companies, check the stats. According to Impact, 80% of B2B buyers want to get their information from detailed, engaging content instead of through advertisements. In other words, they want to be educated instead of pitched. You probably hold a similar view. Ads are intrusive, noisy, and distracting. Content offers real value, which makes it indispensable if you want to gain market share. Since Inbound Marketing is based on content, it's the perfect place to start. 4. 60% of Your Competitors Have Already Started If you're still not sold, look to your left and right. The companies that you compete with for customers and brand awareness have already launched their own Inbound Marketing campaigns. Unfortunately, that means they're skipping ahead down the customer-acquisition path while you lag behind. But don't worry, since the number of marketers using inbound hovers at around 60 percent, you can launch your own inbound campaign and start making up the difference. Creating blog content, connecting with your prospects via email, and engaging with your audience on social media can all have a tremendous impact on your market reach. Now that you're equipped with the facts, it's time to give Inbound Marketing a shot. We're here to answer all your questions and help you navigate through these waters, so request a consultation today.more

Inbound marketing makes perfect sense for companies that sell large volumes of products directly to consumers. Prospects click on an advertisement or social media mention and head straight to the virtual check-out line. However, don't discount inbound marketing if you operate in a super-specialized niche. You can still generate revenue and increase market reach.more

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On Monday, Pete wrote a post all about Millennials and their misconstrued reputation. As a Millennial, it really got me thinking about one of the claims against Millennials that Pete disagreed with: Millennials are lazy. As much as I’m flattered Pete had our backs, I do think there’s some truth behind this statement, especially when it comes to the way Millennials buy.more

Hopefully you’ve gotten to the point where you’ve accepted the fact that blogging is critical to your digital strategy, and most importantly, to attracting strangers to your website. If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably noticed how difficult it is to determine which blog posts will be a “hit” and which posts will attract little to no attention. There have been many times where I’ve excitedly published a blog post and sat by my computer anxiously awaiting the views to start rolling in, and I’ve heard nothing but crickets. This can be very frustrating considering how much energy and excitement I invested into the post, and yet it just didn’t seem to be enough. If you’ve found yourself in a similar position, I’d like to encourage you to take a deep breath and not take it personally. It’s important to remember the main strategic initiative of your blogging efforts is to position yourself, and your organization, as a thought leader to the personas you serve so they begin to view your website as a valuable resource they can turn to in times of need. Keeping this in mind, there are a few things you can do to help position your blog posts so they are more likely to gain the level of exposure you’d like them to.more

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a really bad picture may be worth 10,000. Photography really matters. Probably even more than you think. The quality of the photography on your website directly relates to the perceived quality of your business. This means you could have the greatest product in the world, but if the photography is bad, people are also going to think the product is bad.more

Inbound marketing sounds fairly simple. After all, millions of teenagers "create content" on Facebook and Instagram every moment of their waking hours. Some even have followings in the quadruple digits. However, true inbound marketing is neither simple nor easy -- at least, not when it's done correctly. More than 90 percent of purchase decisions don't start with a television commercial or billboard, but with an online search. While inbound marketing helps you appear in those search results, you have to let go of the toxic myths that often pervade inbound marketing conversations and instead embrace these five hard (but important) truths.more

Sliders, Rotators and Carousels. It doesn't really matter what you call them, but chances are, you know what I'm talking about. (and in case you don't it's the thing at the top of the website that cycles, usually unrelated, text and images). And it’s also quite possible that you think no website is complete without one. But you're wrong! I'm going to take the next several minutes to dispel that myth and hopefully, put these ancient artifacts of the web to bed once and for all. You can call them whatever you want, but for the sake of this article, I’m just going to call them sliders. They’re a staple of the website of yesteryear. They're that old friend at the party (usually me) who's long overstayed their welcome. The problem is, a lot of people still think that guy's the life of the party, when in reality, he needs to be kicked out and never invited back. At MINDSCAPE, we deal with modern websites on a daily basis. We create them and we look to them as a source of inspiration. The problem is, if you're not actively seeking them out, a truly modern website is still hard to come by. The thing is, most websites were last redesigned years ago, so while they’re using outdated techniques, we still see sliders everywhere. And since we see them everywhere, we just assume we need one on our site.more

I went out for a nice long hike yesterday to take advantage of the “warm” (42 degree) Michigan “winter weather” and started to reflect on some of the recent conversations I’ve had with business owners and marketing professionals regarding Inbound Marketing.more

You've devoted time and energy to your Inbound Marketing campaign, but you're seeing less-than-stellar results. Maybe your conversion rate has fallen or your website traffic has reached new lows. Even worse, perhaps you're seeing little sales growth.more

If you’re like the majority of the marketing professionals in the world where your stomach gets tight the moment you read, or are told of the importance of blogging, it might be due to the fact you already have too much on your plate, you don’t consider yourself a writer, or you’re stumped as to what you’d write about anyhow.more

I've threatened to write this post for a long time. Too long. There are two reasons it's taken a while for it to happen:more

I’m sure your inbox gets cluttered each week with the “We can get you to #1 on Google” SEO emails (just like mine does), and you’ve probably been receiving them for a long time. Based on feedback from client's we've acquired after trying these services, they will leave you very unsatisfied. Their success will be measured by achieving a top rank for your company name or some obscure keyword that never provides leads or new customers. That's best case. Most received no results at all except a debit from their bank account.more

We mostly work with large corporations that require a lot of privacy, so we're often not able to share specific thoughts and ideas on the work we're doing with them. But in a fun exchange with a local photographer last week, I feel I shared some quality advice about turning great content into valuable content for his business and he agreed to let me share the exchange with you.more

You’ve probably heard the cornerstone of Inbound Marketing, as well as being found online, is to consistently create compelling and valuable content for the personas you serve. And the most effective way to do this is through blogging. This post will help demystify blogging and help you with your planning so you’re not stuck staring at a blank screen as you attempt to tackle this profitable activity.more

Are you tired of watching your competition continue to grow through their online efforts while you’re struggling to gain any traction at all?more

What predictions do you have for inbound marketing in 2016? With 2016 on the horizon, that's the question we asked the MINDSCAPE team. Read on to find out what some of the team is predicting.more

Please raise your hand if you’ve ever found yourself haunted by the fact that your competition is kicking your ass online. You know what I’m talking about… Every time you do a search on Google for the products and services your company offers you see the same competitor at the top of the list and your company is nowhere to be found! To make matters worse, once you leave the search results page you are followed around by that same competitor’s ad on almost every website you visit. Even on Facebook, where you attempt to escape to throughout the day; it’s almost as if they are taunting you for your lack of digital prowess. How long are you going to let this happen before you do something about it? Hey, I’m not trying to rub salt in your wounds, I’m simply trying to motivate you to do something to improve your situation and your company’s revenue. The more the question above pisses you off, the more motivating it should be. You’ve known for some time now that you and your marketing team are struggling in this area right? Let’s take the next few minutes to examine just how much it costs to continue to do things the same way without taking action to reverse your position and begin to dominate your dominator. To do this we’ll need to gain an understanding of a few metrics before we can calculate how much it could be costing you to allow this situation to play out each month.more