COMMENTS
Great Video; you guys are big enough to trust and small enough to believe! love your products and awesome advice. Thanks
This reminds me of a South Park episode about 'The Underpants Gnomes' and their three-phase business plan, consisting of:
Step 1. Collect underpants
Step 2. ?
Step 3. Profit
I'm not trying to be a punk and say I didn't learn much about lead generation, but I'm left with a question mark on step 2
Step 1. use social media with interesting content, have conversations
Step 2. ?
Step 3. Sales/Leads/Profit
Like the one guy was saying "great, you have thousands of people viewing your YouTube video, now how many of them bought something?"
How are people 'Using Social Media Marketing for Lead Generation?'
@Scott H - First of all, I am a huge South Park fan and you get major points for the reference! Second, I totally see your point. The panel (as panels sometimes do) wandered around in terms of content and didn't really focus on the original topic/question maybe as much as it should have. So let me add my thoughts about how social media can be used to generate leads.
1) Social media is a great way to drive traffic to a website that will convert people into leads. With
www.WebsiteGrader.com a good portion of our traffic comes from StumbleUpon, a social media tool, and a good portion of our traffic on that site converts into leads for HubSpot.
2) Social media is like another way of building your email list. You can use your presence in social media to advertise events (like webinars) to generate leads. We had 2000 people register for our last webinar, and we use social media to get a good portion of them. In most social networks, you can form a group, and then send that group messages by email or within the network itself. See http://LinkedIn.ProMarketers.com (6,000 members) or the HubSpot Page on Facebook (600 fans) for examples.
3) Social media can drive more links to your website, which drives SEO, which in turn drives leads. A number of our blog articles have done well in social media and attracted 25-100 links into those articles. This helps improve your SEO rankings. Search Google for "Facebook Business Page" or "Google Search Tips", we're usually on the first page because these articles got a lot of acclaim in social media and attracted links. Visitors from SEO convert into leads at a decent rate.
What if you start a blog and no one comments on it, what if you form a community and no one joins it or posts anything? Isn't that worse than if you never did these things? That is a worry with a small company, that you might look worse if you failed at these things than if you never did them.
I think that most social media "experts" are navel gazers that focus on the creative side of things.
I'm more of a numbers and $ myself.
Used in isolation, Social Media is hit or miss. You could produce a Youtube video and hit a homerun or a dud. You could spend a year talking to yourself on your blog and never get a comment.
The important thing is to fit social media into a broader internet marketing plan like this:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4217/Generating-a-Steady-Flow-of-Inbound-Sales-Leads.aspx
And this:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4179/Search-Engine-Optimization-THEN-Blogging-THEN-Social-Media-Marketing.aspx
And then measure whether it results in leads and sales, as well as whether it supports your blog and SEO, like Mike explained above.
I also think salespeople "get" social networking a lot quicker. It's a great 1 on 1 prospecting and lead nurturing tool:
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/4061/13-Ways-to-Use-Your-Blog-to-Improve-Your-Sales-Process.aspx
This is a very good presentation on using social media, and I like to see more, in the future.
You hit the essence of 'Marketing' right on with your comment,
"What sets our marketing efforts apart is how we relate to people and how we talk to people about what we do."
Loved the break-it-down comment response defining social media too and of course websitegrader. . .
Followed your post in from somewhere & thought I'd check out what other interesting things you have to say. It is always refreshing to see informative content and interactive comments! Kudos
@Scott H --
I second Mike's comment in complimenting you on referencing the underpants knomes episode of South Park. One of our developers (actually employee #1), Patrick FitzSimmons, showed that video to Dharmesh and I when he first joined and we all belly laughed about it and worked hard to make sure we were never in that type of business.
With regard to your specific question, HubSpot is getting real benefits from the social mediasphere. Here are the actual hubspot.com metrics on visitors and lead from the last month by social media "source", not including campaigns, search engines, etc:
- websitegrader.com: 3237 visits, 858 leads
- blog.hubspot: 1941 visits, 142 leads
- pressreleasegrader: 317 visits, 92 leads
- onstartups.com blog: 467visits, 24 leads
- linkedin: 450 visitors, 19 leads
- facebook: 254 visitors, 16 leads
- techcrunch: 27 visitors, 6 leads
- stumbleupon: 825 visitors, 5 leads
In particular, the linkedin stuff is trending upward rather steeply...mostly due to the marketingpro's linkedin group we set up.
@Calvin -- Thanks for the compliment: "big enough to trust and small enough to believe."
I got another "back-handed" compliment from a guy who was in the audience who I ran into a couple of days later. He said something to the effect of, "of the 4 guys, your geekiness was the most credible." I wasn't sure if I wanted to punch him or kiss him.
I've noticed the updward trend from linkedin also. We should talk about what we can do to increase that.
Theoretically, I still believe in the value and concept of social networking, but I am not entirely convinced on the effectiveness of social sites for marketing. I am so tired of being added to someones site only to realize that they are trying to sell me something, particiarly porn or some cam experience. When it comes to social marketing it has become synonymous with SPAM.
Agree, disagree? I am curious.
Daniel
@Daniel --
Disagree. See the following metrics on HubSpot's top referring sites by source:
- websitegrader.com: 3237 visits, 858 leads
- blog.hubspot: 1941 visits, 142 leads
- pressreleasegrader: 317 visits, 92 leads
- onstartups.com blog: 467visits, 24 leads
- linkedin: 450 visitors, 19 leads
- facebook: 254 visitors, 16 leads
- techcrunch: 27 visitors, 6 leads
- stumbleupon: 825 visitors, 5 leads
LinkedIn, Facebook, and StumbleUpon visitors are all converting into leads. All 3 of these sources are growing quite a bit month over month.
Stay tuned for more blog content about how to leverage these tools. In particular, we will be blogging about our "ProMarketers" group on LinkedIn, which is particularly interesting. Our success with ProMarketers can be replicated by others.
Great thread.. looks like I'm a little late, but am wrestling with this 'whither Social Media' question now.
I think the main questions that myself and others are asking are:
1. Is it worth the effort?
Your lead numbers are interesting, but add all those leads up, and you're at 1000ish. We've gotten similar numbers from ad campaigns that cost less than $5000. I'm pretty sure if you add up the TIME (and money) it took you to do all the stuff that caused those leads, $5000 would look like the deal of a lifetime, no?
2. How do you avoid a big FAIL. As another commenter here said, the big fear is putting all the effort in and getting nothing but crickets in return. Seems to me the vast majority of blogs are that way...
Of course, one can fail with advertising too.. but it's quick and less publicly painful...
Thoughts?
Also, if you don't count the 'graders' Hubspot's created (which are apps, and the leads could be attributed to the great PR campaign around them) you're only at around 100 leads for all the rest of the efforts combined.
Since most small companies aren't making apps and ARE thinking blog/facebook/linkedIn when they're thinking 'social media', we're looking at a much smaller return still - and Hubspot's GOT to be at the top of the game.. tons of publicity, VC backing, etc etc. Most small companies shouldn't expect to get the traction you've gotten, I'd think.
Again, what would it cost to generate 100 decent leads with ad campaigns vs. what it took to build, run, and promote all those blogs and groups, etc?
I'm just sayin'... it's what the folks who haven't taken the plunge are wondering, I think...
Great video. I have learn so much from you guys.I was The Internet Manager for a Toyota store for over a year and I am now the Internet Director for five stores. Thank you for all your help.
Jose Alonso
Internet Director
Jenkins Group
352-362-5990
Social media - the sites are MEDIA.
The marketers have to get the message to the audience. Same old, same old! Lets write a brochure! But what is it going to say? Lets write a brochure!
In my view, the jury is still out about the effectiveness of social media. I share many of the concerns of other contributors on the usefulness of writing the blog and posting a video, as while they may increase traffic to the website. The effectiveness can only be measured by the conversion of those visitors into customers/clients, either in the short or long-term. For some products, this may be an effective route, but for services, especially training/coaching, it is not that straightforward.
Veronica
Twitter: ExecSolutionsTr
Wow.... If the jury is still out on Social Media it will always be a hung jury for you.
My book "When Bad Credit Happens To Good People" has sold copies on six continents solely because of Social Media. I have not spent dime one on advertising in eight months and counting.
To answer the question of what happens when no one responds to your outreach? Ask those people who have spent millions on advertising and no one bought their products. The difference? COST of FAILURE..
Let me spin that around for you just for the sake of argument. What would it mean for your business if it were a smashing success? What if you invited hundreds of prospects to your event and they BOUGHT your product, or service?
Offer value, deliver excellent service, and you will be successful. Social Media is word of mouth advertising to a MUCH larger audience. That is why people in Poon India are buying my book on the American Credit System.
i think this could have benefits as far as visits and possible customers. myself i am providing a service not a product so 90% plus of the hits i get are web surfers. I do have some pretty decent pics of my work for people to see hopefully people will comment on, but as far as actual customers the videos and blogs haven't brought much yet.