Inbound & Digital Marketing Blog

HubSpot recently introduced a new Prospects tool that provides some amazing real-time data on the people who are visiting your site!

With some work, it's always been possible to mine your server logs and use a reverse IP lookup to see who's visiting your website. That's what HubSpot does, but they've made it really easy to use. To see what I mean, watch a 4 minute video on HubSpot's new prospect tool.

Top of the Sales Funnel Visitors

People visit your web site for all kinds of reasons. They may have come across your site on Google, LinkedIn, or through some other inbound marketing activity. Something about you caught their attention. These visitors are right at the top of your sales funnel, and it could be too early to reach out to them. But, what if they are an ideal target prospect -- A perfect potential customer?

Prospects on your site are much better than people you buy from a list. They really are interested in you! If they seem like a great match for you, why not connect with them via LinkedIn or just give them a call. Just don't lead with "I know you visited our website ..." That might freak them out.

Middle of the Funnel Visitors

Other people may be further along in the buying process and lower in your funnel. Perhaps you  contacted a prospect or even delivered a proposal in the past. Then, nothing. You might have given up to focus on better prospects.

Now, they're back. Fortunately, you've got the prospect tool, so you know they're back. They might be embarrassed that they couldn't purchase from you before, so they're reluctant to call. You, however, can make a timely call and get the sale back on track.

Takeaways

As you saw in the video, it only takes a few minutes a day to see who is visiting your site. Make time for yourself and your salespeople to check this valuable information every day!

How are you going to use the prospects tool? Leave us a comment.

Image Credit: Sean MacEntee

Get prospects into the funnel, work the leads, and make sales. Right?

If you're using Inbound Marketing to fill your funnel, you already know it's easy to get lots of people to your website. And, if you have good opt-in offers, you already know how to turn your visitors into leads. So, why aren't your sales and profits skyrocketing?

The Problem: Some "leads" aren't really prospects

Let's say you are a tax attorney -- You help people resolve their tax problems.

There are a lot of people with tax problems -- Especially in today's economy. And, a lot of these people are doing web searches for help. If you provide a useful opt-in offer, they'll jump on it.

Now you've got a funnel full of people, but many of them aren't qualified. They don't have any money (That may be how they came to have tax problems in the first place). Or, they only have a small tax problem -- It's not worth involving a tax attorney. Worse still, they don't have tax problems at all, but are just curious or bored.

You know the real customers are in there somewhere. So, what do you do? Hire a bunch of salespeople to start contacting your leads.

Now you've got a bunch of expensive, frustrated salespeople. They can't reach any of the leads, and when they finally do talk to someone, they aren't qualified. Even the leads that do seem to be qualified suddenly disappear and won't respond.

For some situations, you might be able to tune up your inbound marketing to reduce the problem. You could discover the keywords that only qualified buyers use, then adjust your AdWords, messages, and landing pages to only get the good leads. However, many times, there just isn't enough information in keywords to let you find the good leads. Everyone uses too many of the same search terms.

Marketing Automation

There's another answer -- Marketing automation. Separate the marketing funnel from the sales funnel, and protect your salespeople from lousy leads. It's marketing's job to filter and qualify leads and only send reasonably good prospects to sales.

Here's what you do:

1. Keep filling the marketing funnel with inbound marketing. Just don't immediately pass new leads to sales.
2. Send email messages to your marketing leads. Are they clicking your links and coming back to your site? If not, they aren't qualified.
3. Add tracking analytics throughout your site to detect when a lead visits a buying indicator page. If you setup the analytics well, you'll discover that visits to a few of your pages indicate buying intent. If they're visiting these pages, pass them on to sales!
4. Monitor social media sites like Twitter to see if your leads are mentioning relevant problems and asking for help.
5. Create middle and lower funnel content and landing pages. Leads who have a vague idea of their problem search with general keywords. They aren't qualified. Good leads who are closer to buying will respond to bottom of the funnel offers.
6. Use lead scoring to segment your list and know when they're ready to buy. Send messages to your leads based on where they are in the funnel to further qualify their buying interest.

With good leads, your salespeople can focus on building trust and resolving concerns. Your marketing automation platform can qualify and warm your leads.

It used to be that only the largest online companies could afford the technology required to implement marketing automation. Thanks to companies like Hubspot, the tools you need have become less expensive and are now appropriate for small businesses.

Takeaways

• Don't waste money and destroy the morale of your salespeople by sending them poor leads.
• If you're a business owner, stop wasting your time on poor leads.
• Use marketing automation to generate warm, qualified leads.

Image Credit: M Glasgow

Having a search box on your website is helpful for several reasons:

• Your visitors can easily find the information they are seeking
• You can analyze the search queries for insights into why people are visiting your site
• For sites with a lot of content (And all Hubspot sites should have a lot of content), your visitors can find information that they wouldn't naturally discover using your navigation

How to create a Google search engine for your Hubspot website

1. To create a Custom Search Engine with Google, go to: http://www.google.com/cse/
2. If you haven't already created a Custom Search Engine, click the big Blue button -- the one labeled "Create a Custom Search Engine.
   
   After you've set one up, you can click the manage your existing search engines link.
   
   
3. Google will ask you to sign in. You'll have to use a "Google Account." This can be any email address that is registered with Google -- It does not have to be a gmail address.
   
   
4. Google will show you a form like the one below. The name and description is only for your internal use.
   
   Make sure you put in the name of your site without the www. This way, Google will search all your sub-domains. Don't worry, this can all be changed later.
   
   Most Hubspot users will want to buy the Site Search that starts at $100 per year. There is a free version, but Google will usually show your competitors in the search results -- not what you want!
   
   If you have a larger site with a lot of searches, you may need to buy one of their more expensive versions.
   
   
   
   
5. Click Next. Google will show you a Preview screen with a search box you can test out.
   
   When you are finished testing, click Next again.
   
   
6. Google will ask for your contact information. Fill out the form, and click Next.
   
   
7. Complete your purchase through Google Checkout.

That's it, you're finished! If you run into any trouble, please leave a comment or call us for help (800.609.9669).

On the last Google Checkout screen, there are links to:

• Edit this search engine
• Go to this search engine's homepage
• View all of your search engines

If you've got HTML and CSS skills, Google will give you sample code that you can integrate with your Hubspot site.

If you need help setting this up with Hubspot, Contact us.

People often describe something as magic or art when they don’t know how to reliably create a result they want. In this case, I know better because I can interview and pick great employees almost every time. Most hiring managers only pick winners 25-40% of the time. I used to have a low success rate, too. Then, I learned how to effectively interview and evaluate and get it right almost every time!

How to Evaluate Talent

• Start with a clear Performance Benchmark. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, how will you know when you find it? How would you know if you got a great employee or not!
• Use Structured Interviewing. There’s a lot to say on structured interviews, but basically, you ask the same questions to each candidate, so that you have a consistent way to compare candidates. I use a chronological interview which starts at the beginning and covers the candidates entire work history. For each job or period in a person’s background, I ask:
  • How did you come to work at __________? (Fill in the blank with the next company or job. This is a transition question. I want to know why they left their old job and how they found the new one.)
  • What was the situation when you started the job?
  • What were your one or two best accomplishments? (Great people will both have accomplishments and want to talk about them.) Once you’ve heard the accomplishment, ask how they did it. You want something they really did rather than something they can just take credit for.
  • What didn’t go as well? It’s easier to get this after they’ve talked about accomplishments. Everyone knows things they could do better, so I keep pushing until I get something.
  • If they were a manager, I’ll ask how many direct reports they had. Then I want to know what they did to improve their team and develop their people.
  • Finally, why did they leave the job?
• Evaluate each candidate against the Performance Benchmark. I grade each candidate against each desired result, skill, etc. Because I used the structured interview, I have a lot of data to back up each grade. I can look through my notes to see where they’ve actually accomplished something similar to the results I want. I want to see accomplishments that are both specific and relevant to my open job. If they’ve done it before, there’s a good chance they’ll produce results for me.
• Once I’ve interviewed and evaluated each candidate, I pick the best one and make an offer. Or, if none of them meet my standards, I start over and generate more candidates.

None of this is all that hard, but it does take commitment and discipline. It does require some work! A good structured interview can take 4 hours for an experienced candidate. That’s a lot of time, but how much time does it chew up to have to fire someone or compensate for poor performance. I’d rather spend a couple of man-days getting it right on the front end than spend man-months cleaning it up later.

So please, take the time to get it right, or hire someone to do it right for you (This is one of the services I offer my clients). There’s just no reason to think it’s art or luck that determines the quality of your hires. Take the time and do the work! With a little practice, you can have great hiring results, too!

Keywords for High SEO Rankings

If you’re familiar with SEO, you’re familiar with the concept of keywords. But, do you know which keywords are most likely to generate the best results for your website? What works for your competitor’s site may not necessarily work for yours…

The best keywords are not always obvious.

When you go about identifying keywords, it’s natural to think of the obvious choices – for instance, if you’re in the business of selling vehicles, you might assume cars, trucks, and SUVs are good, solid keyword choices. Well, they may be great choices IF you have a massive budget to corner the market on those highly competitive words. The reality is there are thousands of competing sites that already have decent rankings for those keywords. If you focus on words like cars, trucks, and SUVs, you’re going to be spinning your wheels near page 378 in Google search results.   

Long tailed keywords are the way to go.

If you’re in the auto sales industry, you’ll naturally include words like cars, trucks, and SUVs on your site pages because, after all, that’s what you’re in the business of selling! However, that doesn’t mean you should focus on these specific words for SEO purposes. Instead, focus on long tailed keywords that have moderate to low competition AND receive reasonably high monthly searches. How do you pick strong long-tailed keywords? Here’s how:

Finding competitive keywords.

Go to Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool. Enter, let’s say… affordable trucks in the “Word or phrase” box. Be sure to checkmark the box that says, “Only show ideas closely related to my search terms.” Choose the proper settings for your Location and Language too.

Over on the left hand side is a column labeled, “Match Types.” Checkmark the box labeled, [Exact]. If you’re looking for how many people search on your specific keyword, use this option. An exact match word is always enclosed in brackets.   

Under Search Terms, the phrase, [affordable cars], has 1,900 local monthly searches and the competition meter shows that it has high competition.

It would be pretty hard to rank highly for this particular keyword in Google search results, so let’s take a look at some better options. On the right hand side, click on the “Local Monthly Searches” header to sort the column in the order of largest to smallest. 

The results that show the highest monthly search count all happen to have medium competition levels. If you happen to be in the business of selling used cars and sports cars, [affordable used cars] and [affordable sports cars] might be good keywords to consider. Also, [best affordable cars] and [most affordable cars] would be ones to consider.

Takeaways
Effective SEO relies heavily on keywords, so be sure to choose your words wisely. If certain keywords don’t seem to produce good enough results, experiment by switching them out for other keywords. Cut your competition by focusing on long tailed keywords. Own the keywords you select and aim at ranking highly for them.  

We were just looking at Performance Benchmarks and importance of having a clear purpose for the role. Now, let’s look at the other key parts — Results and Special Skills or Competencies.

Performance Results

The Results section is the most important part of a Performance Benchmark. It says what you want the employee to Get Done. Not what you want them to do or be responsible for. What Measurable Results do you want them to produce!

Usually, you’ll have four or five specific results. Maybe a couple more, but any more than seven is too many. Make each result clearly measurable, and have a specific time frame. Here are some example results for a Sales Executive:

• Close $400K in sales revenue within assigned territory in fiscal year 2007.
• Identify and close 6 new customers within assigned territory in fiscal year 2007.
• Respond to all inbound leads within 24 hours.

Of course you have to also have the ability to accurately track each result. The point is that anyone — Employee, Manager, Mail Clerk — Should be able to easily know whether the result was accomplished or not.

Special Skills & Competencies

This is the area for any special requirements. If your new employee needs to have experience in Outsourcing to Far East Manufacturers or Oracle Database Administration, this is where that information goes. If your company uses some standard competencies like Good Communicator, Persuasive, Team Player, put them here if they are important to the job. If it’s not important leave it out!

Do you know the two competencies most associated with top talent?

• Resourcefulness - The ability to find a way to get something done.
• Self Awareness - Accurate understanding of their strengths and weaknesses. They will also know how to leverage their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses.

The Performance Benchmark is the cornerstone for any company that is serious about great performance. Use it to evaluate both existing employees and potential candidates.

Have you ever considered publishing a press release about your business? If you’re like most businesses, the thought probably never crossed your mind. Want the potential to draw thousands of people to your website? Think about creating press releases for your new product, service, or upcoming event.

Image by: Eivind Z. Molvaer

The Benefits

The beauty of a press release is twofold – not only are you promoting news about your business to the world, you’re also enticing readers to link to your website. Anyone who knows a thing or two about SEO knows that the more inbound links you can generate, the better your website will rank in search results.

If coverage is what you want, coverage is what you’ll get! Premium press release distribution services can send your releases to every major news site and search engine on the Web, placing your news squarely in front of thousands of readers. 

Proper Format

Writing a press release is a lot like writing an article. Though some press release distribution sites urge you to follow a specific format, the general structure for any press release should be as follows:

• Headline: create a catchy headline that’s sure to attract attention. Think of the headline as a big announcement that summarizes the purpose of your release in 170 characters or less. The primary keyword of the topic should be included so both the reader and the search engine know up front what your release is about.     
• Summary Paragraph: sometimes called the “sub-headline,” the first paragraph supports the main headline by elaborating on the main point of the press release. It should be a short, concise sentence that is italicized.   
• Location and Date Line: the city and state where your business is located, the name of the news distribution service shown in parenthesis, and the date of the release should be included.  
• Body: the body typically consists of two or three paragraphs that each focus on a single idea. Each paragraph should be separated with a blank line between them.
• Company Information: a short overview of your business follows the body. This same overview can be used in all press releases.    
• Contact Details: include your contact information so readers can reach you. This section should include your name, phone number, email address, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter information, and your company’s URL.

If you’d like to see a perfect example of how a press release should be formatted, take a look at the B2B Inbound Launches HubSpot Partner Services in San Francisco Bay Area release submitted by Greg Elwell of B2B Inbound.

Distribution Services

There are a number of news release distribution services that publish press releases. Some sites will circulate releases for free, but if you’re SEO-conscious and would like to maximize your reach, stick with quality services like PRNewsWire, BusinessWire, MarketWire, and PRWeb.   

What kinds of results have you had with press release submission services? Have any stories to share?

I've already told you about how important it is to have Performance Benchmarks to hire the right person.

How to create a Performance Benchmark

There are three key sections:

Purpose - Overall, why are your hiring a person for this role?

Results - What results do you expect a great employee to produce?

Skills & Competencies - What special skills or other characteristics would a great employee need?

Performance Benchmark - Purpose

Why are you hiring someone for this role? Answer like this: “The ROLE NAME at COMPANY exists to ________.”

As an example: “The CEO of MyCo exists to grow the company by 15% per year while maintaining 20% profitability.”

Keep it simple and don’t try to cram everything in there. Sure, you want your CEO to maintain compliance with relevant laws, avoid lawsuits, develop people, and a bunch of other stuff. But, what do you really care about? Be Straight! This isn’t the place to sound good or sell the candidate. Having a clear purpose sets the context for the job, creates clarity, and helps you get started defining the results you want.

Next, we’ll look at defining and specifying results.

The Performance Benchmark sets the standard for the job in terms of specific results!

To hire the right people, start with a good Performance Benchmark. If you don't know what results you want, you're much less likely to have a hiring failure.

With a good performance benchmark, you can double your hiring success!

• It’s work to think clearly. Muddled, imprecise thinking is easy. Clear, sharp thinking takes a little work. Not a lot, but enough that we don’t do it sometimes.
  
  
• Managers have to take responsibility for doing their job. What if all the employees meet their benchmarks, but the group doesn’t? That means the manager didn’t see to it that everything was assigned and communicated. It’s easier to leave things vauge, so you can always blame someone else for the lack of results.
  
  
• People sometimes resist being measured — At least at first. Employees quickly start to appreciate clear expectations. And they get a sense of accomplishment from beating the benchmark.
  
  
• What do you think? Please leave a comment if you know other reasons.

OK, hopefully you’re thinking “I’m convinced I should use Performance Benchmarks”!

Read on and learn how to Create a Performance Benchmark ...

Internet Marketing Comprehensive Review

Inbound marketing is all about getting found by customers. Unlike dated and costly outbound tactics, inbound marketing relies on leveraging web content to bring customers to your cyber doorway. To ensure your web content is out in view of your target audience, optimize it and place it in locations where they’re most likely to run across it. Here’s an overview of the 3 key components of inbound marketing strategy. 

Image by: Giles Gonthier

1. Content
Content is the cornerstone of any successful inbound marketing campaign. It’s what generates interest in your business and draws people to your website. Content is strategically formulated – it’s optimized with keywords that are search engine-friendly, and conveys a valuable message to your target audience.  Publishing high quality content enables you to showcase yourself as an expert in your field. If you come across as a credible problem-solver, people are likely to hire you for jobs. Your content should also revolve around keyword topics applicable to your business. Blogs, videos, white papers, podcasts, webinars, and eBooks are some of the most effective ways to get your content out into the world.     

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
The objective of SEO is to maximize your website’s visibility in organic (unpaid) search results. Prospects begin the buying process by entering keywords in popular search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search or Bing. Isolate which keywords they’re most likely to use when searching for your product or service. Incorporate these keywords into your content and aim for keywords that are most likely to get your website ranked highly in search results. Here are the main factors that influence SEO results:

• Title tags that are brief but descriptive, unique for each page, and accurately describe a page’s content.
• Descriptive meta tags that include keywords and summarize the subject of your page.
• Simplified site structure that organizes your content and makes it easy to find. Create a naturally flowing hierarchy that makes sense to viewers and search engines.
• Create 2 sitemaps – one for viewers, and one for search engines. 
• Anchor text that describes the page to which it’s linking.
• Use heading tags to emphasize important text.
• Optimize site images by giving them descriptive filenames and using the alt attribute.
• High quality content that is compelling and useful. Influential sites will earn recognition on their own.
• Write fresh content regularly and ensure your text is easy-to-read.
• Use the robots.txt file to tell search engines not to crawl parts of your site that are not useful to viewers.
• Focus on generating a large number of quality inbound links.

Google offers an excellent Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. For some valuable SEO tips, check it out!  

3. Social Media
Social media allows for the creation and exchange of user-generated content. It puts your supporters in control, making them more engaged and connected with your business. Social networking is extremely valuable for branding. As our society has grown more “casual,” consumers feel greater comfort buying from businesses that have a face and personality to their name. Social media channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube are ideal for engaging with prospects. Show them you’re personable and open to listening to their suggestions and concerns. Build a social media presence using multiple sites so your ability to connect expands.