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So, you've heard of Inbound Marketing and want to start creating content. But you don't know where to start. You've thought about hiring a consultant to help you get more traffic and more leads, but you have allocated your resources elsewhere. What can you do?more
I hate small talk. I really, really do. I just don't see the point in it. Two people locked in a conversational script littered with generic questions and answers that leave the participants equally uninterested and uninformed. Why bother?more
Are you struggling to gain traction with your digital efforts because you’re not receiving enough traffic? Do you receive constant complaints from your sales team about the lack of (or quality of) the leads you receive with the anemic level of traffic you are receiving? If these challenges sound familiar, you’re not alone and will definitely want to read on. Follow these 5 steps and I'm confident that your website will start to generate more quality leads.more
My last post was a bit different than the majority of the content we share on the MINDSCAPE blog as it related more to personal positioning than it did to marketing. The interesting thing about personal positioning is how closely it’s actually related to your marketing and the positioning of your company and the products and services you offer. This post will showcase the similarities, as well as the pitfalls to avoid with your marketing.more
When you're launching a startup, you have a million things on your mind: how do you connect with customers, who will you use as suppliers, and how many employees do you need? Don't let all those other necessities distract from your most powerful marketing tool: your website.more
Every time marketers get comfortable with Google's secret sauce, the search-engine giant changes its recipe yet again. Recently, Google announced that it would remove its right-side ad spots from the SERPs (search engine results pages), which of course meant that half the Internet marketing population experienced a temporary mental breakdown. Now that the news has sunk in, however, it's time to examine what this move means for your digital strategy.more
I first became involved in website and application development 17 years ago, when it was a fledgling concept with very few rules or established best practices. Back then, the only thing marketers felt they needed was an “online brochure” that covered who they were, what products and services they offered, and provided contact information just in case someone was interested in calling or emailing.more
Do you feel like you know who your customers are and what’s most important to them? I don’t believe a marketing professional or business owner has ever admitted to me that they don’t know their customers or understand their most pressing problems, and I don’t blame them. Of course you have a solid understanding of who you serve, and how you solve their issues. If you didn’t you’d probably either be out of business or looking for a new job. The more specific questions I’m asking are … Do you know your customers intimately and understand the complexities they face in life outside of the areas in which you can provide support? Do you fully understand their motivations, desires, concerns, or any resistance they might have in choosing the solution you provide? Most importantly, when it comes to connecting with them online, do you understand the specific language they use? If you can answer the questions above in the affirmative … CONGRATULATIONS! I’m sure your business is growing and you’re creating a bunch of rabid promotors of your Brand. Customers love it when they can tell a company has invested the time and effort to truly understand what is most important to them. They typically reward this effort by opening their checkbooks and telling others about the phenomenal experience they had with your organization. On the other hand, if the questions above give you an uneasy feeling in your stomach, don’t worry. I’ll give you some ideas that you can utilize to efficiently get inside your customer’s head, and use the insights you gain to provide an experience that makes them want to tell everyone they know about your company and how well you’ve taken care of them. It is never a waste of time to invest in gaining a deeper understanding of your buyers, it’s a requirement!more
Are you held accountable for increasing the number of visitors to your website and you’ve turned to PPC as the answer? Have you found it challenging to prove an ROI on your PPC advertising campaign? Did you hire a media agency to come in and “save the day” but have had a less than satisfying experience?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
Whether you’re creating a new site from scratch or just giving your site a facelift, content on the site can be a challenge to deal with. Inevitably, there is always either too much content or not nearly enough! In this blog post, we won’t be dealing with creating content as much as we’ll be dealing with how to go about organizing your existing content!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
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
Choosing the right content management system (CMS) for your business can be a daunting task. Here are 5 things to keep in mind when making that decision:more
