Optimize 3.0 Inbound Marketing Blog

From industry best practices and our own experience here at Optimize 3.0, there are six key components of a successful marketing campaign.  We detailed those here to assist your ongoing inbound marketing plans:

1) Produce a compelling offer

I came across this great NY Times article: Small Players Seek an Alternative to the Expense of Pay-Per-Click that details how inbound marketing works as a viable alternative to pay-per-click (PPC).  It also happens to feature none other than Tom Telford, the owner of Blue Creek Cabins who I featured in my post Hubspot Review: The Most Revealing Ever Pubslished.  Tom's story and the article is extremely informative and something small businesses should heed regarding the rising importance of inbound marketing as an effective digital marketing tactic.  In addition, there's an ironic twist: Google is directly helping out with Tom's success. 

 Recently, someone asked me what is inbound marketing?  I recognize there are quite a few definitions  and Hubspot put together this great video.   But I have a particular answer for “what is inbound marketing software”, that differs from simply explaining it relative to old-school outbound tactics (e.g. intrusive TV and newspaper ads).  This definition can best be described as inbound marketing in practice.  That is, how is the software actually applied from beginning to end.  It certainly helps to do this if you have inbound marketing software that integrates the various components.  Here’s Optimize 3.0’s definition of what is inbound marketing:

Successful website redesign is difficult to define primarily because successful website redesign is actually a continuous process.  There's no beginning, middle and end.  Moreover, it's as much about functionality and performance as design.  Too often, website redesign is driven by the wrong reasons.  These can be exceptionally costly and time consuming. 

Exactly what is Hubspot?  Well, by way of a real world example I’m going to shed some light on what it is and how it can help your business.  Starting from keyword research, to blogging, to lead generation, to sales conversion here’s a step by step example of how I earned a client using Hubspot together with inbound marketing principles. 

Social media marketing is daunting.  You need to commit time and effort that may not be readily available.  Yet, social media is where potential customers are searching for information to assist their purchase decisions.  Moreover, the search engines take into account the "social-ness" of your website when ranking pages.

The Internet has fundamentally transformed the way in which people locate, discover, share, shop, & connect. For a business owner, reaching consumers has transformed dramatically. A successful business needs to understand the best way to reach its customers online in order to expand.

Over the course of my career I’ve worked with a number of content management systems (CMS).  From Joomla to Drupal to custom solutions.  Here’s the hard truth: They’re not built for true CMS marketing.   It’s not that they don’t really work, they did a bit.  But they fail at a far more basic level:  You need a developer to get them to function.  Despite every attempt to get these platforms to be user-friendly, they are not.  You’re constantly in need tech help for everything from buttons to updating the database.  For a site owner who needs access to his/her site, you can’t be held hostage by a developer.  I’ve seen this too often.    

Interview with Tom Telford, Vacation Property Manager for the premier destination Helen Ga Cabin Rentals.