Inbound & Digital Marketing Blog

Do you stand out? If you don’t stand out, you blend in. And you do NOT want to blend in.

To succeed in business you need to do something different. You need to be remarkable.

Yes, remarkable means something that’s striking or worth noticing. But, it also means something that’s worth making a remark about—worth talking about.

Very good is bad—it’s still average. Anyone who’s been around for a while is very good. To channel Donald Trump, “Average is for losers.”

A few of you are thinking, “Great, I am already remarkable, now what?” Most of you are wondering, “How in the world can I make my company remarkable?” Keep reading, and I’ll answer both questions.

How to be remarkable

Step 1. Who Actually Cares?

No matter what, you can’t be remarkable for everyone. People have different preferences and will respond to different remarkables.

Instead, you have to choose who you want to serve and learn who actually cares. Pull out your Precise Prospect Profile. If you don’t have a prospect profile, make a second resolution to: Create My Precise Prospect Profile in the first quarter of 2016. Need Help? Download the Precise Prospect Profile kit.

Focus on your ideal prospect. They should care passionately about your business. If not, you’ve got a “nice to have” product or service. Work on becoming indispensable.

Before going too far, I’ll go ahead and tell you the bad news. If you want to be remarkable, you’re going to annoy some people. It’s weird, but to have some people love you, you have to accept that some will hate you. Sorry.

It’s not safe or comfortable to be remarkable. It is, however, highly profitable.

Step 2. Deliver a Micro-Remarkable

Here’s a good practice. Do something small that makes a difference. Take an existing customer and create something remarkable.

Choose the customer because they are important to you, have been with you for a long time, or because they represent your ideal customer.

Even better, involve them in the process. Develop some potential remarkables internally. Then, go to the customer, present the remarkables, and ask them to select the best one.

Go further. Ask them to help you expand the potential remarkables list. Deliver on one or all of them if you can. They will eagerly tell their friends.

Delivering micro-remarkables is an excellent practice. Do it on an ongoing basis. You’ll delight your customers and become adept at seeing new remarkables.

Step 3. What Do Customers Hate About Your Company or Industry?

Every industry has accepted practices and ways of doing things. And some customers absolutely hate the way the products or services are delivered.

How many of you feel good about getting an itemized bill from an attorney showing tenths of an hour billed at $400 per hour?

Some of you are thinking, “Yea, I know they hate _____, but it has to be that way because …”  Does it really? Could you do things differently, erase the annoyance, and increase your profits? It takes creativity, but there’s often a way.

Step 4. Edgecrafting

Seth Godin wrote about being remarkable in The Purple Cow. Later on, he coined the phrase, “edgecrafting.”

Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn't always matter which edge, more that you're at (or beyond) the edge.Seth Godin

You can get an overview of Seth’s ideas by watching his TED video:

Here’s how edgecrafting works. Find the edges of a product, a service, or a problem. Then, explore ways to shift the edge. As Seth points out, push the edge way out to create a competitive advantage.

This work is very specific to each company and market, so it’s hard to provide a great example. To know more, schedule a Remarkability Audit for your company. It’s free, and you’ll get at least one potential remarkable to evaluate.

Edgecrafting Strategy Canvas

Another way to do edgecrafting is to create a strategy canvas positioning diagram. Map the relevant dimensions of a market on a graph like the example below. What happens if you completely eliminate a dimension, or max out a dimension? What if you add something totally new to the mix?

In this example our company (Shown with an Orange Line) is similar to the industry (Blue Line) in dimension 1 and dimension 3. But, our company has reduced dimension 2 and significantly raised dimension 4.

Each dimension is a property of the product or service. Things like price, speed, or quality. Any dimension that matters is fair game.

• Speed
• Price
• Experience
• Stories
• Quality or Features
• Vision
• Culture
• Anything different that makes a difference (that matters).

Step 5. Why Are You in Business?

Look at “why.” Why are you in business? Why do your customers buy your product or service? Why did you start the business? Focus on the emotional reasons that go beyond profits.

At Inbound Team, we’re in business because we can’t stand to see companies struggle due to lack of leads. That's our "why."

Keep it simple. Look at this from a child’s perspective. Imagine that you are explaining what you do to a young child.

What change are you trying to make in your customers? Who do you want your customers to become? What change do you want to make for your customers and for the world?

Be human. Be connected. Be generous. Take a chance. Do something that might not work.

Find an idea where you’re afraid someone will say, “How dare you!” That’s how you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Step 6. Play the Remarkable Game

The remarkable game is great fun and it keeps you in practice. Pay attention as you encounter the world. Notice what works. How could each organization be more remarkable.

Go to a restaurant. What would make your experience more remarkable? What if they knew your name, read your mind, and knew exactly want you wanted to eat? What else could they do that would make your visit remarkable?

What would make your next internal meeting remarkable? How might your company culture be more remarkable?

Step 7. Tell Your Remarkable Story

Once you’re different, make sure to tell the story–get your messages clear and aligned. Does the home page on your website tell the story?

Companies that sell to other businesses often struggle to communicate effectively. A lot of context is required, so the explanation becomes too long and too complex.  

Having a good story is one way to cut through the complexity. Tell a story about one small part of your product or service. It will make prospects curious to hear more.

All stories are invented, and it’s okay to be creative and embellish the details. Human beings love stories and your company is full of stories just waiting to be told. Create your remarkables and find the stories that will help your prospects hear and understand.

You Are Remarkable, But You Aren’t Done Yet

Now you’ve found or invented some great remarkables. Cool, but you aren’t done yet.

Being remarkable is an ongoing practice. Your competitors will steal remarkables where they can (this is also called “progress”). You have to constantly invent new remarkables. Welcome to the 21st century.

Review your remarkables and update your positioning chart regularly—once or twice a year. Keep looking for ways you can change the world.

And keep finding new stories that showcase your remarkables.

Takeaways

• Be remarkable or invisible—your choice.
• Being remarkable takes work. It’s some of the hardest work you’ll do in business. Do it anyway!
• You may have remarkables you are taking for granted. It’s easy to be so close to your company that you can’t see. Get a remarkability audit for help seeing who you really are.
• Take the challenge and promise to make your company remarkable in 2016.

Remarkability Audit

This is hard. Don’t get stuck. Get a Remarkability Audit, and I’ll help you discover your remarkables.

In the last blog post we discussed some of the best channels available to attract visitors to your website. Now you know how to get visitors to your website, let's take a few minutes and determine if it has the elements needed for those visitors to become leads.

2. Convert Prospects to Leads

Take a look at your current website and ask yourself the following questions:

1. Is your website optimized for mobile?

Over half of all website visits come from a mobile phone or web-enabled device. If you have a website and you want to cut out half your visitors, make certain your website doesn't work on mobile.

Mobile is critical to your business and will continue to be so. Help visitors have a good experience on your site when they’re visiting from their mobile devices by ensuring your site is mobile friendly and responsive.

2. Is your website easy to navigate?

A great website has well thought out navigation. Think of the general path you want a site visitor to take. When the navigation's clear, visitors will stay longer on your site and will be more likely to become a lead.

Think through the structure of your website so it all makes sense in a logical flow. That way, when visitors come to your website, they will have an easier time navigating to the information that's most relevant to them.

3. Is the message clear?

Your website has the best chance to leave a good and lasting impression on your visitors when you have an uncomplicated and clear-cut message. To have a successful and engaging website, you need simple and clear communication of  your company's product and purpose.  

Will a visitor understand what's special and remarkable about your business from looking at the website? Make certain your website's purpose is clear on your home page and landing pages so it will deliver valuable leads and sales.

4. Do you have an offer?

When a visitor comes to your website, what action do you want them to take? What will get their attention and entice them to provide their name and email so you can follow up with them further?

To get visitors to take action, you need effective calls-to-action, or CTA's. These are an essential part of any website and will help direct visitors to take the action you desire.

Your website is competing with over 1 billion other websites in the world, so it must be in top selling condition. Take some time and make the adjustments necessary so every visitor to your website has the greatest chance to become a lead for your business.

If you need help determining how your website is doing, click below and sign up for a Free Website Review. 

Are you still using old outbound marketing techniques such as cold calling and cold emailing, and wondering why you are not seeing the results you used to? The buying process has changed and   Inbound Marketing has become essential.

Inbound Marketing brings you qualified leads, warms prospects before you get in touch with them, helps educate your customers, and establishes you as an expert. 

 In his article, 10 Reasons Inbound Marketing is Necessary in 2016, AJ Agrawal briefly but thoroughly explains the benefits of Inbound Marketing and how you can see huge growth in 2016 by using this method. Take a few minutes and read it.

If this sparks your curiosity, and you’d like to learn more, sign up for a free Lead Boost Review or give us a call. We’d love to help.

Will you join me in making a new year's resolution?

I promise to make my company remarkable in 2016.

If not, go cut out your marketing budget. You’ll just be wasting money. Marketing, especially inbound marketing, won’t work well unless you’re remarkable.

Yes, remarkable means something that’s striking or worth noticing. But, it also means something that’s worth making a remark about—worth talking about.

Very good is bad—it’s still average. Anyone who’s been around for a while is very good. To channel Donald Trump, “Average is for losers.”

A few of you are thinking, “Great, I am already remarkable, now what?” Most of you are wondering, “How in the world can I make my company remarkable?” Keep reading, and I’ll answer both questions.

How to be remarkable

Step 1. Who Actually Cares?

No matter what, you can’t be remarkable for everyone. People have different preferences and will respond to different remarkables.

Instead, you have to choose who you want to serve and learn who actually cares. Pull out your Precise Prospect Profile. If you don’t have a prospect profile, make a second resolution to: Create My Precise Prospect Profile in the first quarter of 2016. Need Help? Download the Precise Prospect Profile kit.

Focus on your ideal prospect. They should care passionately about your business. If not, you’ve got a “nice to have” product or service. Work on becoming indispensable.

Before going too far, I’ll go ahead and tell you the bad news. If you want to be remarkable, you’re going to annoy some people. It’s weird, but to have some people love you, you have to accept that some will hate you. Sorry.

It’s not safe or comfortable to be remarkable. It is, however, highly profitable.

Step 2. Deliver a Micro-Remarkable

Here’s a good practice. Do something small that makes a difference. Take an existing customer and create something remarkable.

Choose the customer because they are important to you, have been with you for a long time, or because they represent your ideal customer.

Even better, involve them in the process. Develop some potential remarkables internally. Then, go to the customer, present the remarkables, and ask them to select the best one.

Go further. Ask them to help you expand the potential remarkables list. Deliver on one or all of them if you can. They will eagerly tell their friends.

Delivering micro-remarkables is an excellent practice. Do it on an ongoing basis. You’ll delight your customers and become adept at seeing new remarkables.

Step 3. What Do Customers Hate About Your Company or Industry?

Every industry has accepted practices and ways of doing things. And some customers absolutely hate the way the products or services are delivered.

How many of you feel good about getting an itemized bill from an attorney showing tenths of an hour billed at $400 per hour?

Some of you are thinking, “Yea, I know they hate _____, but it has to be that way because …”  Does it really? Could you do things differently, erase the annoyance, and increase your profits? It takes creativity, but there’s often a way.

Step 4. Edgecrafting

Seth Godin wrote about being remarkable in The Purple Cow. Later on, he coined the phrase, “edgecrafting.”

Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. It doesn't always matter which edge, more that you're at (or beyond) the edge.Seth Godin

You can get an overview of Seth’s ideas by watching his TED video:

Here’s how edgecrafting works. Find the edges of a product, a service, or a problem. Then, explore ways to shift the edge. As Seth points out, push the edge way out to create a competitive advantage.

This work is very specific to each company and market, so it’s hard to provide a great example. To know more, schedule a Remarkability Audit for your company. It’s free, and you’ll get at least one potential remarkable to evaluate.

Edgecrafting Strategy Canvas

Another way to do edgecrafting is to create a strategy canvas positioning diagram. Map the relevant dimensions of a market on a graph like the example below. What happens if you completely eliminate a dimension, or max out a dimension? What if you add something totally new to the mix?

In this example our company (Shown with an Orange Line) is similar to the industry (Blue Line) in dimension 1 and dimension 3. But, our company has reduced dimension 2 and significantly raised dimension 4.

Each dimension is a property of the product or service. Things like price, speed, or quality. Any dimension that matters is fair game.

• Speed
• Price
• Experience
• Stories
• Quality or Features
• Vision
• Culture
• Anything different that makes a difference (that matters).

Step 5. Why Are You in Business?

Look at “why.” Why are you in business? Why do your customers buy your product or service? Why did you start the business? Focus on the emotional reasons that go beyond profits.

At Inbound Team, we’re in business because we can’t stand to see companies struggle due to lack of leads. That's our "why."

Keep it simple. Look at this from a child’s perspective. Imagine that you are explaining what you do to a young child.

What change are you trying to make in your customers? Who do you want your customers to become? What change do you want to make for your customers and for the world?

Be human. Be connected. Be generous. Take a chance. Do something that might not work.

Find an idea where you’re afraid someone will say, “How dare you!” That’s how you’ll know you’re on the right track.

Step 6. Play the Remarkable Game

The remarkable game is great fun and it keeps you in practice. Pay attention as you encounter the world. Notice what works. How could each organization be more remarkable.

Go to a restaurant. What would make your experience more remarkable? What if they knew your name, read your mind, and knew exactly want you wanted to eat? What else could they do that would make your visit remarkable?

What would make your next internal meeting remarkable? How might your company culture be more remarkable?

Step 7. Tell Your Remarkable Story

Once you’re different, make sure to tell the story–get your messages clear and aligned. Does the home page on your website tell the story?

Companies that sell to other businesses often struggle to communicate effectively. A lot of context is required, so the explanation becomes too long and too complex.  

Having a good story is one way to cut through the complexity. Tell a story about one small part of your product or service. It will make prospects curious to hear more.

All stories are invented, and it’s okay to be creative and embellish the details. Human beings love stories and your company is full of stories just waiting to be told. Create your remarkables and find the stories that will help your prospects hear and understand.

You Are Remarkable, But You Aren’t Done Yet

Now you’ve found or invented some great remarkables. Cool, but you aren’t done yet.

Being remarkable is an ongoing practice. Your competitors will steal remarkables where they can (this is also called “progress”). You have to constantly invent new remarkables. Welcome to the 21st century.

Review your remarkables and update your positioning chart regularly—once or twice a year. Keep looking for ways you can change the world.

And keep finding new stories that showcase your remarkables.

Takeaways

• Be remarkable or invisible—your choice.
• Being remarkable takes work. It’s some of the hardest work you’ll do in business. Do it anyway!
• You may have remarkables you are taking for granted. It’s easy to be so close to your company that you can’t see. Get a remarkability audit for help seeing who you really are.
• Take the challenge and promise to make your company remarkable in 2016.

Remarkability Audit

This is hard. Don’t get stuck. Get a Remarkability Audit, and I’ll help you discover your remarkables.

Content plays a key role during the sales process. It’s not just for the marketing phase. Content gives you an excuse to be in touch and multiple touch points means more rapport.

The more a lead engages with your business, the deeper that connection grows. 

In complex sales, use your content to sell across the prospect’s company. Continue providing content after the sale to maximize customer delight.

Also, to make this process run smoothly, you need a good CRM that captures pre-sales qualified lead data and informs the salesperson. Use this data to target content to the right individuals. Identify key pain points an individual is facing, and use that information to formulate your pitches.

Finally, analyze your prospects’ marketing actions to decide the best way to close the sale, or to continue building a connection until those leads are ready to buy.

Build your inbound selling skills using the Inbound Sales Super Guide. Download the guide and make the shift to Inbound Sales today. 

When shifting to Inbound Sales make sure your marketing and sales teams are on the same page. They should have the same goals in mind, be working together, and understand each other’s role in the process.

Your teams can do this in three main ways:

1. Decide on definitions.
2. Keep Marketing and Sales accountable.
3. Survey Sales to help Marketing create more targeted content.

Let’s break them down:

1. Decide on Definitions

Your teams need to agree on four main definitions:

1. Leads
2. Inbound Leads
3. Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs)
4. Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs)

Regular leads are shots in the dark. Your team doesn’t have any background information on them, and you don’t know where they are in the buying process. These are the “leads of old.” They come from buying email lists, random outreach, etc.

Inbound leads, on the other hand, are backed by information. You know where they are in the buying process and your team knows how to reach out to them.

Next up are Marketing Qualified Leads. These leads are in the right industry for your business and have pain points and goals that your business can cater to. 

Finally, your teams need to decide what characteristics determine a Sales Qualified Lead. SQLs are all about the right actions like call requests, downloading bottom-of-the-funnel content and visiting sales pages. Through the actions they take, your sales team knows exactly which people are more likely to buy.

2. Keep Marketing and Sales Accountable

To align Sales and Marketing, you want to eliminate as much friction between them as possible. One way is to establish lead transfer metrics and and other processes that keep both of your teams accountable. 

First, determine how many leads Marketing will deliver in a given time period. This could be each day, in a week, a month — whatever works best for your business.

Make sure you’re also doing quarterly, monthly, and yearly reviews to help your team track their progress and plan future growth.

Finally, Marketing should be open about sharing lead intelligence with Sales:

• The content your leads have downloaded
• What types of emails they’ve engaged with
• The pages they’ve visited

This information is vital to your sales team’s ability to do their jobs effectively.

3. Help Marketing Create More Targeted Content by Surveying Sales

This is how you establish a feedback loop that makes the entire process run more smoothly.

Just like Marketing should relay lead intelligence to Sales, Sales should relay how leads are reacting to their content back to Marketing.

Your marketing team should then find out what their sales process entails, what characterizes a high and low quality lead, and the top reasons a lead doesn’t close.

Marketing can use this information to create more targeted content, which will make Sales more effective (and happier).

In the end, if your sales and marketing team are fully knowledgeable about the process and the lead, the customer will feel valued at every stage of the conversion process. 

To learn more about aligning your sales and marketing teams, download the Inbound Sales Super Guide and make the shift to Inbound Sales today. 

Salespeople used to hold most of the knowledge about their products and services. They were the educators. These days, buyers do their own research, read online reviews, and talk to their peers before ever speaking to a salesperson.

Buyers hold the power, and today’s business to business buyers respond best to a consultative sales process.

Companies, marketers, and salespeople have to adapt to this change in consumer behavior. Marketing has made major shifts through Inbound Marketing. Salespeople are now charged with making the shift to Inbound Sales.

Inbound Sales focuses on aligning Sales and Marketing so they are both focused on increasing sales and working together in an inbound world.

Instead of overpowering buyers with your pitch about how great your company or product is, you need to ask questions and listen to better understand your prospect’s “pain”. Then, use the information you gather to present your services as the solution.

Think about how a doctor asks questions and allows patients to discuss what they feel and then follows up with more questions. It’s best to listen to your prospect so you can gather vital information needed to solve their problems.

It’s about teaching sales people to use content and buyer intelligence so they can structure sales conversations to reflect the buyer’s situation and interests. This helps them know which topics and types of content prospects are interested in and which ones are doing the best job of closing sales. Using this information helps you develop a sales conversation that focuses on the buyer’s issues.

In a consultative sales process, listening to prospects and being focused on helping them is of utmost importance. It’s about their needs, their issues, and the help they need from you to become educated buyers who trust your business and are comfortable making a purchase.

Inbound Sales is based around this premise: 

Each prospect has a unique journey to follow in their buying process. 

It’s the inbound salesperson’s job to facilitate this journey.

Build your inbound selling skills using the Inbound Sales Super Guide. Download the guide and make the shift to Inbound Sales today. 

Do you struggle to write great headlines and optimize your content to attract more readers? If your headline does not grab the attention of your prospect, your content won't be read. If your content is not optimized correctly, search engines won't find it and you won't gain traffic. 

Online content creation is difficult. There's a lot to it. Fortunately, there are some excellent tools available to help you maximize your effort. In the article Tools to Help You Optimize Blog Headlines and Content at ProBlogger.com, top tools are listed that will help you create powerful headlines and optimized content for increased visibility. 

All the tools listed in this article can help you develop your headlines and optimize your content. For even more marketing information, read the CEO's 2016 Guide to Marketing and learn how to create and execute your own 2016 marketing strategy.

Are there other headline and content tools you've found helpful? Share your favorites with everyone in the comments!

Recently, we compared inbound marketing with trade shows. Then, I came across a great article from our friends at Square2 Marketing about how to maximize trade show success with inbound marketing.

If you attend your industry's top trade show, you may invest $10,000, $20,000, or more. Do you want to spend that money for your people to stand around in a booth and collect business cards? Or, would you actually like to get some real leads and have that event pay off?

Inbound marketing can help you have a completely different experience at your next tradeshow. If you take an inbound approach, it will be money well spent.

Planning is key for your event to be considered a real success. You need to start planning for your event 8-12 weeks in advance.

Create your schedule first. Start backwards from the day of the event, and plan your pre-show, in-show, and post-show marketing tactics. Once the plan is complete, assign the individual tasks to your team.

Inspired by the Square2 article, I made a handy checklist you can use for your next trade show. If you need help with any of this, don't hesitate to call and talk to us—inbound marketing is our passion!

Since 2006, inbound marketing has been the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Inbound marketing brings visitors to you. It earns the attention of customers, makes your company easy to find, and draws prospects to your website with interesting content.

Inbound marketing is all about attracting visitors (with high-quality, targeted content) and nurturing them until they're ready to buy. 

But inbound marketing is not something you can learn in a day or two. It requires a very diverse, yet specific skill set that you must learn and develop. 

We've gathered articles on every inbound skill you need to learn and put them in one easy to use guide. From lead generation to SEO, this guide has got you covered.

Read the Definitive Guide to Inbound Marketing and learn:

1. The Basics of Inbound Marketing
2. How To Create Content That Attracts The Right Prospects
3. How To Drive Boatloads of Hungry Traffic To Your Website
4. Long Term Inbound Marketing: SEO Techniques From The Pros
5. Strategies That Convert Prospects Into Leads
6. Sales Funnel Tactics: Close Leads Into Customers
7. How To Keep Your Customers Coming Back For More
8. Inbound Marketing Success Metrics
9. Advanced Inbound Marketing Skills
10. Inbound Marketing Case Studies

Making the switch from traditional, outbound marketing to inbound marketing can seem a little overwhelming at times, but the benefits are indisputable. The sooner you can learn the skills you need and take action, the sooner you will be reaping the rewards of inbound marketing—more leads, at a lower cost.

To learn more about Inbound Marketing Strategy, and to get a complete evaluation of your situation, schedule a Free Lead Boost Review.