Intermediate Blog Posts

You know those business bloggers who never run out of innovative ideas, churn out a piece of content like it ain't no thang, and are always one step ahead of industry trends?

How annoying are they?

Well, the good news is you can be like them!

The world of personalized media continues to take shape around us.

Google, Bing, and other search engines tailor results to reflect our social influences, our past interests, and even the devices we're on. Facebook prioritizes newsfeed content based on our past engagement. The Huffington Post, The New York Times, and other major

Warning: This isn't one of those happy news updates that opens up new doors for your marketing -- like Facebook announcing embedded posts. Nope -- this is one that's going to actually close some doors for you. And like Peter Griffin says, it's really going to grind your gears. Yesterday, Search Engine Land reported that Google has made a change aimed at encrypting all search activity -- except

I talk to sales executives a lot via networking. More often than not, my discussions with them pertain to best practices. One best practice I like to bring up is social media monitoring, which, to me, is something executives need in order to be wholly effective in their jobs.

A recent study commissioned by the Better Business Bureau's Wise Giving Alliance (BBB WGA) found that national nonprofits that meet the “watchdog’s standards for accountability" raise considerably greater amounts of money via donations - 8%, to be precise - than other organizations that don't abide by the group's guidelines. It was an even larger difference for

Many company owners look at an inbound marketing plan as a silver bullet that will solve all their growth challenges -- they’ll get more leads, convert them into more customers and revenue, and retire to a beach in the Bahamas.

However, we know a secret: a successful inbound marketing plan is likely to create a whole new set of challenges, like

Our stat-hounds cannot keep up. Figures for website traffic from mobile devices have jumped again. This time from 13% in 2012 to nearly one-fourth (24%) in the first quarter of 2013 -- a 78% increase in total.

So if it's all the same to you, whenever someone

Today’s websites have changed when compared to those of even three years ago. Advancements in technology combined with wiser consumers have made closing sales harder for those businesses stuck in a more traditional marketing mindset. For instance, a recent study concluded that before the consumer picks up the phone to talk to a sales person, they're already 57% through the buying

Staying on top of new website design and optimization trends may feel intimidating. The technology seems like it evolves every single day so that while you're just catching up on terms like “mobile optimization” and “dynamic content," a billion new terms emerge. 

To help you conquer the fast-paced world of website optimization, we compiled the

Like it or not, the first experience most people have with your company is going to be your website design. Do you want them to see a flat, bland, and impersonal electronic brochure? Or rather, an individualized, warm, and interactive experience that gets prospects connected with your company from the very first visit?

We preach a lot about creating marketing people love, by way of remarkable content. But what actually makes a piece of content powerful, timeless, and inspiring? It's something we often wonder, not often answer.

With the recent passing of one of the greatest

There are 3 billion searches a day on Google. Yes, we said billion.

One of the biggest missed opportunities for nonprofits is Google for Nonprofits, which includes a free membership and access to a variety of products including Google Grants,

We are multi-tasking phenoms. During my last trip to the greatest diner on earth, I scanned an article about CRMs between the first and second coffee pour. Midway through my omelet, I got side-tracked by a tweet about Alexander Graham Bell. By the time the check came, I'd forwarded myself a research report for future download -- content that ended up

Editor's Note: Facebook no longer supports the ability to add thumbnails to your page's tabs. Click here for a more up-to-date post about how to customize your Facebook Page.

Remember back when Facebook introduced the new Timeline design for Facebook Pages in February 2012, and we all scrambled to modify our business pages to mesh with the new design?

I honestly can't believe it was that long ago, but we all rushed to create and add Cover Photos

The smartphone revolution is here and your organization cannot ignore it. 83% of Generation Y respondents to a recent study said they have smartphones. And according to StatCounter Global Stats, global mobile traffic represents 13% of internet traffic, up from just 1% in 2009.

Alisa Meredith is the co-owner and inbound marketing strategist at Scalable Social Media, an inbound marketing agency in Wilmington, North Carolina. I (Corey Eridon, the editor of this here blog) hopped onto Facebook Chat with her for a conversation about whether it's really possible to ever scale social media marketing.

Me: Hi Alisa! Thanks for joining me today. We're

I’ve listened in on a lot of sales demos. It started as a simple sales research project -- what conversation paths were our prospects taking? How could we optimize those paths, and from a marketing perspective, close the loop to deliver more qualified prospects to our sales team? More educated prospects, shorter sales cycle ... everyone wins!

Fall fundraising event season is here! How are you going to amplify your event online? We've got a few ideas for you and your cause marketing team.

With your event season in full swing, your organization is focused on making sure everything runs smoothly.

Yesterday, the architect behind Coca-Cola's content strategy, Jonathan Mildenhall, took the keynote stage at Content Marketing World and brought both smiles and tears to all our eyes.

Why? Because he told an epic series of stories. And he told these stories, by sharing stories, in order to teach how to tell stories. (Whoa, meta, right?)

For new product marketers out there looking to make a splash, I thought it might be worth examining the company that is arguably the best in the world when it comes to launching new products, to see how they do it. 

I'm talking about Apple, which yesterday held a long-awaited and widely covered event in San Francisco to announce two new iPhone models

In a world where 40% of people respond better to visual information than plain text, it's probably a good idea to optimize your social media channels with visuals. And one of easiest ways to take advantage of visual content on social media is through your cover photos -- sitting right at the top of your profile, they occupy a huge piece of very valuable real estate. 

If you've been following inbound marketing for a while, you've probably heard of the term 'smart content' before. It's one of those terms lots of people use and assume that most everyone knows what it is. But not all of us are in the know -- lots of people are searching about it every day. So we wanted to break it down once and for all. What is smart content and how will it impact your marketing? Let's dive in.

Every 24 hours, 2 million unique blog posts are published. In light of this statistic, the quest to claim the #1 spot on Google’s search results for key terms in your industry suddenly seems harder than ever, doesn’t it?

Google’s search algorithm uses myriad different factors, known as “signals,” to determine quality

When I was invited to write a few posts for HubSpot, I decided that one of my topics would be about the “Be Remarkable” theme of their recent INBOUND 2013 conference in Boston and how we can apply that concept to Sales in addition to Marketing. What does it mean to provide a remarkable sales experience for your potential clients?

Content is one of the more important aspects of your website, but it can also be the biggest pain. Although it makes good sense for SEO and lead generation purposes to keep updating your social media sites and keep up a blog, business owners -- and even some marketers -- are generally not writers. Thus, having to come up with topics, read over submissions, and create original content is quite groan-worthy for many.

I have a confession to make. When I was a reporter at Newsweek, I received literally thousands of press releases via email -- and I deleted almost every single one of them without even opening them.

Basically, I used my Newsweek email account as a filter. My “real” email was my personal

What is CAN-SPAM?

CAN-SPAM (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing) is an act that was passed in 2003.

That's right, they looped us in with pornographers.

That act is a law that establishes the rules for commercial email and commercial 

My name is Dan, and I’m addicted to inbound marketing. This works well for me because it happens to be my job. You see, I’m the marketing specialist for a mortgage bank based in southwest Michigan. Bored yet?

Yes, home financing itself is a snoozeworthy industry. However, the ideas surrounding home financing can be very exciting to those who want to know about buying a home.

Recently, Google announced a change in the way Quality Score would be reported within AdWords. The change, which they’re reportedly doing for more transparency, is supposed to tie your reported Quality Score -- the figure between 1 and 10 that you see in AdWords -- more closely with your actual Quality Score -- the figure that gets calculated each time you enter the ad auction.

At HubSpot, we love to teach businesses how to write compelling copy and irresistible offers. One of the most important elements of any piece of content is having an attractive headline. Especially in today's economy where every company is fighting for consumer attention, standing out is important.

Portions of this blog post were excerpted from the ebook, 101 Examples of Effective Calls-to-Action. If you'd like to see more examples of superb CTAs, download it for free and learn exactly what makes them so effective.

The other day I was walking to the bus, using my NextBus app to track when the bus would arrive. Actually, it was more of a half-walk/half-run -- sort of

With so much emphasis on quality content these days (and rightfully so!), it's easy to forget about some of the other things that make an effective blog tick. But let me tell you -- building a successful business blog isn't just about creating content. And if that's the only thing you're focusing on, you're definitely not using your blog to its fullest potential.

You have a mobile optimized site. Woo hoo! That means you probably recognize that 67% of mobile users who land on a mobile optimized site are more likely to convert than if the page wasn’t mobile optimized, and that 61% of mobile users are likely to move onto a competitor’s site if the page they landed on isn’t mobile optimized. 

Two goldfish go out swimming. They come across an older fish headed in the other direction who waves a fin at them and says, "Morning fellas. How's the water?"

Both nod in response, swim away and then turn to each other and question aloud: "What the hell is water?"

The sales connect is the most transferrable skill to master. If you master the connect, you can begin mastering so many other important life skills -- sorority rush, dinner party schmoozing, networking events, and even the first date.

In sales, the connect is your opportunity to make that first impression on your prospect -- the first time that you're catching someone live

In PPC, there are lots of metrics to track, so it can quickly get confusing and then overwhelming. Marketers often ask me, “What’s the one metric I should optimize for? I just want to know the top one or two levers I can pull to make a difference!"

In my experience, looking at thousands of Google AdWords accounts and billions in

Just a couple weeks ago, Google released a new feature -- "in-depth" articles. The idea was to bring quality content to surface. According to research,10% of people's daily search needs are for more in-depth content. So this new feature is intended to help unearth more of that in-depth content.

Among the factors Facebook uses to measure your past engagement are Likes, shares,

Warm and fuzzies are nice, but let's get real -- we're not in marketing for sunshine, rainbows, and unicorns. This is our job, and we want to do it well. And if we do it well, we hope to get promotions and raises. There I said it.

But how do you do that? Kinda hard to say.

Do you know the shelf life of your Facebook posts? It might just be shorter than you think. Okay, admittedly most of us already knew the shelf life was fairly short, right? We've already seen studies from the likes of Edgerank Checker, Optim.al, and Sotrender about this very subject, and they all suggest that most engagement with a Facebook post happens within the first several hours.

So you've done the preliminary research on a prospect and they look like they could be a company you could really help. Next step? Get them on the phone.

There will be times when you get a prospect on the phone and talking on your first try. More often than not, however, you have to try very hard to stand out from the rest of the people interrupting their day.

In one second on the internet, there are more than 6,000 tweets.

Take a breath.

There are now 12,000 tweets. Blink again. 18,000 tweets. Amid all of these tweets are a flurry of opportunities missed by the average marketer.

As you may have picked up by now, visual content is a fantastic marketing weapon. People are naturally attracted to images more than text, it's highly shareable, and social networks are increasingly jumping on the visual content bandwagon.

In fact, social networks are cropping up solely to take advantage of this visual craze. (Pinterest,

As a marketer, email marketing should be one of your favorite tools. Not only is sending emails a great way to communicate with your audience and keep your list warm, but email marketing can (and should!) also be used as a channel for generating leads.

But in order to convert more leads from your

Facebook just rolled out changes to its News Feed, along with policy changes that will make it easier for marketers to stay on top of what Facebook is doing with its algorithms. And that’s great, right? More information, greater transparency – that’s always good.

Undergoing a website redesign? You poor thing.

68% of marketers like you undergo a website redesign every year to 18 months. Those redesigns, on average, take about four months to complete. (Source: The Science of Website Redesign). Which means four months discussions about what is best for your site and company. 

Want to increase the likelihood that people will share your content? Here's the secret: Make it easy.

That's why social sharing buttons are so darn effective. If the button is there, it's extremely simple for people to share your content with their networks. If it's not, it's extremely simple

Have you ever wondered what the future of business will look like? Maybe you figured it’s going to be something like business in the past: buy stuff, sell stuff, try to make a profit by selling stuff for more than it cost you to make it, building a better mousetrap, winning friends and influencing people, crossing the chasm, riding the long tail to the tipping point with the other outliers, going from good to great, and dealing with cheese that keeps moving around.

When Pinterest first opened its doors to the public, many people thought it was just a fad. They said it was "only" a social network for stay-at-home moms and people planning their weddings. Despite the fact that that its target demo (women in the U.S.) controls 85% of consumer purchases, naysayers believed that there wasn't a business case for Pinterest.