Inbound Marketing’s Second Act: 4 Things Every Inbound Marketer Should Do in 2017

2016 marks HubSpot’s 10th anniversary. When my co-founder Dharmesh Shah and I first started talking about the concept of inbound marketing, it wasn’t an evolution -- it was a revolution. Instead of big brands beating small companies with expensive TV commercials, massive billboards, and other types of outbound campaigns as a foregone conclusion, content and search marketing equalized the playing field. Marketing became much more about the width of your brain than the width of your wallet.

Fast forward to today. While the fundamental tenets of inbound marketing still ring true, many of the specific channels and methods prospects are using to find, evaluate, and purchase products are different than 10 years ago.

Even the supply and demand dynamics have changed. In 2006, prospects had an average of four to five choices for any product or service they were looking to purchase. In 2016, I've found that that number has spiked to approximately 14 or 15 different vendors -- and this holds among most industries. Choices that once occupied a few inches on a shelf at a retail store now expand endlessly on the infinite shelf of ecommerce sites.

Supply is way up, and demand is relatively flat. The increased competition means understanding how your prospective buyers research and buy is even more critical.

I’ve spent the last year studying the changes in prospect behavior, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’re looking at another revolution -- which heralds the second act of inbound marketing.

Here’s what that means for you, your prospects, your business, and your 2017 marketing plan.

The Second Act of Inbound Marketing

How to Get Found in 2016 (or, Why Google Is Now Ask Jeeves)

Back in 2006, Google helped buyers find the answers to their questions by serving up links to relevant information. Increasingly today, there’s no click needed -- Google just gives searchers the answer directly through a rich answer box. The numbers vary on this but research has found that between 20 and 35% of searches performed today result in a quick answer box populated on the SERP itself.

Need an answer fast? Just ask. That’s right, Google has finally fulfilled the original Ask Jeeves promise. In our own research we’ve found that clickthrough rates from these answer boxes are also higher than traditional links. RKG Merkle saw a 516% increase in sessions when a client’s page captured the snippet box.

To adapt, companies should start to create content not just intended to rank in search, but also to be pulled into Google’s quick answer box, and educate your buyer directly on the SERP. Here’s a blog post on how to do this.

Quick answer boxes are not the only way Google is changing. Ten years ago, paid AdWords results took up about 50% of the screen “above the fold.” Today, because of a layout shift Google introduced earlier this year, AdWords ads have moved from the right column to the center and take up nearly 100% of the “above the fold” space on both desktop and mobile.

All of which means: If you have the budget, it’s worth integrating ads into your inbound strategy. But how do you run ads in an “inbound” way? Well, bad ads are still useless. If you have a piece of content, however, that’s taken off organically, that’s a good indication it could be even more useful if amplified by some paid budget. I’d suggest using your ad budget to boost quality content that has already done well on social media.

Speaking of social media, Facebook’s Lead Ads product, which enables buyers to complete a form directly in their newsfeeds, is opening up new opportunities and levels of transparency into an ad campaign’s effectiveness. Whereas once we had PPC, we’re now seeing the early days of PPL: Pay Per Lead.

The ad industry is at a significant precipice. On the one hand we’re seeing a drastic rise in usage of ad-blocking technology; according to the 2016 State of Inbound report, mobile ad blocking has increased 90% year-over-year. On the other, ads are getting more space in search engine results and offering better clarity around their cost per lead ratios. All of this will inevitably influence the way prospective customers find your company.

How to Create Compelling Content in 2016 (or, Why the Silent Movie Is Back)

The way people find answers and discover companies is changing, but so is the format of content itself. Here’s what I’ve noticed about the types of content working well today.

In short: Reading is out, watching is in. Ten years ago, the power content marketing move was search + written content. Now, it’s social media + video content.

And these aren’t the hyper-produced, long-form videos from years past. The marketing teams winning the video game today are mastering live, off-the-cuff video. Additionally, Charlie Chaplin would likely raise an eyebrow to learn we’ve tƒurned away from talkies: A full 85% of videos today are watched without audio.

Increases in mobile usage have fueled much of this growth in video popularity. For content marketers, the takeaway here is simple. While text is still important, you may want to stop looking for that next blogger, and start looking for a video producer. At least 50% or more of your marketing content next year should be in video format, either hosted natively on social or created with social distribution in mind.

The other thing to know about content consumption is much of it is now happening away from the bounds of your website on social media. Social media has evolved from a promotion channel alone to a platform for content. Buyers aren’t just stopping by social media sites during work breaks anymore -- they never leave.

Facebook in particular has started to dominate how we spend our free time. Four of the apps consumers use most -- Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp -- are owned by Facebook. Today’s buyers are plugged into Mark Zuckerberg’s universe all day long. If you’re not meeting them there, you risk losing them.

How Buyers Buy in 2016 (or, Why Uber Wrecked Your Website)

Ten years ago, your website augmented your sales rep. Buyers would browse the website to get the basics, and then hop on the phone with a salesperson to get into the nitty gritty.

Today, it’s the opposite: Your sales rep augments your website. Buyers want a self-service experience, making a purchase directly onsite or contacting Sales when they’re ready, not the other way around. Indeed, only 19% of buyers in a HubSpot Research study said they wanted to talk to a salesperson during the “awareness” stage of their purchase process.

And the website of 2006 won’t cut it. Your prospects have been trained in every industry to expect automation, personalization, and self-service. They have been spoiled by Uber to expect a consumer-grade, on-demand buying experience. A website that doesn’t enable viewers to get on-demand information or instantly chat with Sales or Support frustrates your buyers and will send them into the arms of your competition.

Throughout the entire buying process -- from your ads, to your website (mobile and desktop), to your live chat service -- buyers expect personalization. They expect you to remember them, give them fantastic service, and enable them to serve themselves through automation.

My Advice For Marketers in 2017 and Beyond

Here are the four things I think every marketer should do next year:

1. Invest in video. Diversify your content playbook to include social + video in addition to text + search.
2. Live in social. We’re not B2B or B2C marketers -- we’re business to human marketers. Humans live in Snapchat, Instagram, Messenger, and a host of other social apps. Find them there.
3. Accelerate your content. Combine content marketing and paid marketing. Repurpose your most successful content for multiple channels and boost it with budget.
4. Automate your buying process. Buyers expect to be able to buy on their timeline with either minimal or no human contact.

2017 marks the second act of inbound marketing. Are you ready?

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3 Ways to Republish Instagram Content on Facebook

Does your Facebook audience respond well to image posts? Have you thought about sharing your Instagram posts on Facebook? Publishing select Instagram posts on your Facebook page adds variety to your feed and can improve organic reach. In this article, you’ll discover three ways to share your Instagram content on Facebook. Why Share Instagram Content [...]

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How to Plan a Seasonal Marketing Campaign: A 5-Step Guide

Seasonal events and celebrations present different opportunities for different business sectors. For many brands, seasonal opportunities are huge and often the most commercially critical times of the financial year.

But planning an effective seasonal campaign not only takes a lot of organisation, it also takes a considerable amount of time. For this reason, smaller brands tend to let these opportunities come and go without making the most of them.

Rather than miss out on an opportunity to connect with you audience and leverage the ongoing conversation during any given season, we put together some tips designed to help you get your campaign off the ground. Let's walk through them below.

How to Plan a Seasonal Marketing Campaign: A 5-Step Guide

Step #1: Choose a seasonal opportunity.

When choosing a season to serve as the jumping off point for your campaign, it's important that you're being strategic. In simple terms, one of the key routes to success with seasonal campaigns is using an opportunity that engages your audience. If your audience doesn't engage with the season itself, you can’t expect to see results from a campaign centred around it.

That said, if you have conducted research into your audience, then you’ll likely know their attitudes around these big seasonal events and should be able to pair that with an event that suits your product or service.

Audit Existing Seasonal Campaigns

Once you have decided on a seasonal event to utilise for a campaign, have a look at some of the last few years’ most successful content campaigns for this occasion -- Ahrefs and BuzzSumo are great places to start with this. When evaluating existing, successful campaigns, spend some time thinking about how each piece approached content format, distribution, messaging, and emotion.

When validating a campaign, you might find that it's helpful to ask yourself the following questions:

• How has this piece used multiple content types and distribution platforms?
• Is the messaging clear and if so, what is it?
• What emotion does this campaign evoke in the user?

This type of analysis makes it easier for you to uncover common denominators that may inspire the ideation for your own campaign and contribute to your strategy when planning.

Gather Insights via External Outreach

If you're looking for an outsider's opinion, try doing some outreach to journalists or various digital publications that have previously covered some of the campaigns you analyzed above.

By sending out some feelers to see what kind of content they like to post around your chosen season, and when they like to receive press releases for these pieces, is a valuable way to spend a couple of hours or so.

That isn’t to say you must take the feedback you get as gospel, but it is good to bear in mind when you are planning your seasonal campaign.

Step #2: Nail down the messaging.

As with any marketing campaign, your seasonal campaign messaging is so important. To help you get started, you should be thinking the following:

• The customer journey and the story you want to tell
• The emotions you want to evoke in your audience
• A call-to-action or the desired next steps you want to encourage

In 2013, MegaRed -- a company that sells a type of krill oil supplement that is good for your heart -- launched a noteworthy digital Valentine's Day campaign.

The basis of the campaign was simple: ‘Whose Heart do you Love?’ consisted of a video piece that urged viewers to give the gift of a healthy heart to someone they love on Valentine's Day by applying for a free sample of MegaRed via its Facebook Page. To return the love, MegaRed would send the user a free sample, too.

To add an additional tug on the old heart strings, MegaRed also promised that once 100,000 free samples has been claimed, it would donate $100,000 to the National Coalition for Women With Heart Disease.

When it comes to messaging, this campaign hit on all the points mentioned above:

• The customer journey and the story you want to tell: The messaging focused on new customer acquisition, and pushed the universal importance of hearth health.
• The emotions you want to evoke in your audience: In this case, it was love. MegaRed promoted its product by urging those watching to help their loved ones take care of themselves and their heart.
• A call-to-action or the desired next steps you want to encourage: Request a free sample.

Step #3: Establish a schedule.

With seasonal campaigns, timing is of the essence. This means not only scheduling time to plan well in advance of the event, but also planning the execution of each stage of the campaign at the right time.

With today’s journalists, editors, and site owners receiving hundreds of content pitches and press releases each and every day, you can imagine the influx they receive around peak seasonal times. That said, you need to have your content prepared, built, planned and ready to be sent to sites at least two months before the big event -- preferably sooner.

When creating a schedule for your campaign, don't forget about your audience. When is the best time to contact them? When will they be most willing to share the content or engage with the campaign? Plan around that, too.

Step #4: Organise your assets.

You should consider all marketing platforms -- email, social, PR, blogging, SEO -- when planning your seasonal content campaign, as incorporating different platforms in your campaign allows for an effective content flow, increased reach, and increased engagement.

One of Zazzle’s most successful seasonal campaigns was one done for AO.com, a retailer specialising in household appliances. This simple idea -- ‘A Guide to the Ultimate Christmas Dinner’ -- manifested into a truly successful campaign that spanned many different content formats and platforms.

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The hero piece was a content hub that sat on the AO.com blog. This interactive piece greeted the user with 12 of the staple ingredients that make up a Christmas dinner that, when clicked on, lead to a simple recipe on how to cook them -- including both an ingredients list and a methodology. This recipe could then be downloaded by clicking a ‘download recipe’ CTA.

Outside of the content hub, we created an infographic that detailed step-by-step instructions for cooking a Christmas dinner. This was distributed via our blogger relations team to help AO.com's campaign gain traction on related websites.

Then it came down to outreach. And with the help of an organized press release and PR push, this campaign was featured in three different articles -- including spots on Daily Mail, The Huffington Post, and 50 Connect.

Finally, due to the useful nature of the content, it shared well on social platforms, adding to the overall success and visibility of the campaign.

The lesson? Think big picture when planning your campaign assets. By distributing your campaign's message across different mediums and placements, it's easier for folks to find it and share it with their following.

Pro Tip: Having an effective, up-to-date campaign plan document is absolutely essential during this part of the process. It will enable you to better organize the timing and frequency of content release, and keep your messaging consistent by serving as a home for all of your campaign assets and communications. Check out these content marketing planning templates to get started.

Step #5: Report and remain agile.

Something that is imperative when managing and planning a marketing campaign is the ability to be agile. Report and review the campaign’s performance as you go along and adjust your strategy if you feel it's necessary.

Where is the majority of traffic coming from? Which pages have the best bounce rate? Which ones are converting the best? Use these simple metrics, and other campaign success measurements, to inform your strategy moving forward.

Don’t be afraid to make alterations to the original plans. If the changes you are going to make will ultimately improve the campaign’s success, why wouldn’t you make them? Remember: It doesn’t matter that this plan isn’t what you started with.

Getting Started

With 2017 coming at us full steam ahead, begin to think about which seasonal events your brand could benefit from over the next 12 months. After all, nailing these seasonal campaigns could be the key to your best financial year yet.

What are your best tips for planning a seasonal campaign? Share them below.

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10 of the Best Infographic Examples of 2016

If you ask us, infographics aren't going anywhere.

This year alone, we've covered how essential they are to SEO, and the numerous resources available to create beautiful infographics of your own.

And yes -- when it comes to infographics, we do like to play favorites.

That's why we went scoured the web for some of the best infographics of 2016. Their topics are vast and their formats are many, but this year, we truly saw some excellent examples of informative design.

Have a look and let these examples inspire you. Who knows -- with all of those resources and a new year around the corner, they might help you create of the best infographics of 2017.

10 of the Best Infographic Examples of 2016

1) Music and Productivity, by WebpageFX

Music is known to enhance many situations. It livens up a party, gets us through a brutal workout, and can make a long commute seem quicker. But did you know that it can also make you more productive? WebpageFX collected these science-backed reasons why music can help you get your work done, and worked them into an infographic that delights us.

This infographic does a nice job of balancing two different color sets -- a best practice, according to Marketing Consultant Brian Downard's infographic design playbook. Downard encourages the use of soft, subtle colors in the background, with pops of color in the foreground to highlight important elements. As you can see below, this approach results in a really clean design.

Beyond the color palette, the folks at WebpageFX did a nice job of following through with the theme, with various musical notes and other symbols that represent a melodic sound. Speaking of symbols, take note of how they used the image of the brain to break down how music stimulates and activates specific sections.

2) “15 Terrifying Statistics On Your Cellphone Addiction” by Trustmypaper

There's so much information out there about the drawbacks of overusing our mobile devices. They make us lose sleep. They facilitate email addiction. But very rarely, it seems, can we find all of this information in one place -- until now.

Trustmypaper created this infographic, which packs 15 eye-opening statistics in a condensed yet engaging format. Plus, the accompanying images help us to process exactly what each number conveys, and reinforces the danger of each fact.

As for the font, it's more than legible, but isn't so big that it doesn't fit in with the overall design scheme. According to a Kissmetrics article from Henneke Duistermaat and Neo Mammalian Studios, poor font choice is one of 19 infographic red flags, and while it may seem obvious, you'd be surprised how many brands just don't get it right.

3) “Vacations Are a Must” Quill

We are definitely preachers of vacation -- how to relax when you're there, how to catch up on email when you're back, and how many of us feel too guilty to take one. But it's a must -- and this infographic explains why.

From the good, to the bad, to the ugly, Quill makes great use of imagery here. The infographic uses a generally bright color palette, to reflect the lightness of vacation. The "happier" images incorporate the benefits, too. But when it comes to the negative impacts of not taking time off, the pictures don't hide them -- even if it's a cartoon, we can sense the annoyance of the characters that work or receive a call from the office during their time away.

4) “How to Leave Your Worries Behind,” by Happify

Some of us have a tendency to chronically expect the worst. (Cough -- guilty.) But chronically worrying isn’t good for you -- from heart disease to memory loss, all of that stress can take a toll on one’s health.

So how do we knock that off? It turns out that there are some fairly simple, science-backed steps to decreasing our anxiety and worry, which Happify has organized into an easy-to-follow infographic. It even has a delightfully helpfully step on figuring out when and how to let go of our negative thoughts, and when they (rarely) deserve merit.

Not to mention, we love the design, especially the combination of bold colors and white space. This infographic manages to work in a vast palette, without seeming to be all over the place with its design scheme -- but its brightness reflects the overall theme of happiness.

5) “The 2016 #GivingTuesday Infographic,” by Classy

When it comes to color, sometimes less is more. In fact, according to an analysis of over 200+ infographics on Pinterest, Venngage found that infographics with only two colors earned the highest number of Pins and Likes. While Classy snuck in a few highlights into this infographic on #GivingTuesday, the primary color scheme is a festive red and green combination -- which aligns perfectly with the "Home Alone" theme.

Speaking of the "Home Alone" theme, the designer of this infographic did an amazing job incorporating subtle, nostalgia-inducing nods to the classic movie -- from the tar-covered staircase to the silly microcopy on the VHS tape. According to Psychology Today, nostalgia memories are social in nature and have the power to inspire social behavior, making this infographic inevitably more sharable.

6) “The Female Entrepreneur: Women Who Run Their World,” by USC Marshall

Female entrepreneurs are taking the world by storm. In fact, among Generation Y entrepreneurs, women are more successful than men. But what makes them so successful? And how are they improving the business landscape as a whole? This infographic from USC Marshall outlines those positive points, from job creation to career growth.

The infographic also includes other fun facts about female entrepreneurship, like the geographic regions where it’s most concentrated, and other tidbits on revenue and valuation. It look a somewhat difficult-to-broach topic around which there's a lot of conflicting information, and incorporated the facts into a well-designed visual.

It has consistent style and lighting, and we love infographics than can seamlessly incorporate a map. Being able to share geographic statistics in visual way is key -- and, it helps people digest a big chunk of data. But our favorite part has to be the use of pictogram charts -- where each icon represents a specific value -- to make it easier for the viewer to visual the data. Pictogram charts can help you achieve a more representational view of your data, and even overcome differences in language, culture, or education, according to The Data Visualization Catalogue.

7) “How to Avoid a Hangover” by Fix

As you might be aware, there's a new year around the corner. With that comes New Year's Eve, which brings a lot of partying. In other words, January 1st might be known as the most hungover day of the year.

Knowing that, Fix provided yet another helpful infographic that breaks down all things hangover. We're delighted by the design of this visual. It incorporates a ton of helpful information, ranging from what a hangover really is, to how to prevent them, to how to cure them the next day. And the images? We don't know about you, but we're craving a full English breakfast.

What we really like about this infographic is the ability to condense important details that, were they in the format of a full article, may not have been as easy to process. We'll drink to that.

8) “Typography And Font Deconstruction” by The Logo Company

When it comes to design and text, there are two things we know to be certain:

1. Comic Sans is bad.
2. We have to be able to read it.

As for the rest, it seems like learning typography is like learning a second language for many marketers. It has to be on brand, it has to be legible, and what the heck is a ligature?

The Logo Company took some fundamental pieces of the typography vocabulary and compiled it into this well-designed infographic. Following its own advice, the text is perfect. It's readable, but considering there aren't a ton of pictures in there, it doesn't leave us feeling overwhelmed by text. At the same time, each vocabulary word has a clever visual representation next to the written definition, which helps to keep the image from looking too text-heavy.

9) “Why a Website Redesign Doesn’t Always Work,” by VWO

Sometimes, a website redesign is necessary. User preferences change, as do brands themselves -- that should be reflected in your public-facing content. But are you going about it the right way?

According to this infographic from VWO, many marketers aren't. And while we don't love the errors of website redesign outlined in this visual, we do like the way they're represented. It's thematic -- there's a recurring use of contrasting red and green, for example, to symbolize the necessary A/B testing that, evidently, 57% of website redesign projects lack. Plus, we enjoy how literal the imagery is, without going over the top. A burger represents "food for thought," and a brain accompanies the statistic on psychological factors in design.

10) “12 Classic Sauces and How To Make Them” by Quid Corner

When the holidays roll around, one of our favorite parts is the food. And what enhances any dish -- besides wine? An accompanying sauce, of course.

So when Quid Corner combined two of our greatest loves -- food and infographics -- we were thrilled. It's not often that actual photos appear on infographics, but when they do, it can be tricky to pull off. The lighting has to be just right, and the coloring has to match the overall design scheme of the infographic at large. This infographic manages to pull that off, by using a backdrop that's ample in white space, and a specific color theme according to each recipe -- red for tomato and green for parsley, for example. Is anyone else feeling hungry?

Let’s Get Visual

Okay, so maybe we have a thing for infographics. But it’s easy to see why -- they’re such a concise, comprehensive device for conveying detailed statistics and facts in a visual way that makes them easy to follow.

So as you plan your marketing for 2017, don’t leave out the visuals -- and certainly don’t leave the infographics behind. Need some help creating your own? Be sure to check out these free, pre-made Infographic templates.

What were some of your favorite infographics of 2016? Let us know in the comments.

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How to Track Facebook Conversions After February 2017

Do you track the results of your Facebook campaigns? Are you using the old conversion code that’s about to be phased out? Setting up Facebook’s conversion tracking will let you track your return on investment (ROI) down to the penny. In this article, you’ll discover how to set up and install conversion tracking using the [...]

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December 13, 2016 at 12:00PM http://bit.ly/2hodwOH
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How to Build A Social Media Strategy Dream Team [Free Ebook]

Social media is no longer the new kid on the block when it comes to marketing channels. Today’s most successful B2B and B2C companies have recognized and harnessed its potential as a scalable lead generation tool. It's also a great growth engine, driving conversions throughout the funnel.

Although the importance of social media seems obvious to modern brands, many are still struggling to make it work. In fact, in certain contexts, social media is the hardest strategy for 38% of SMBs to execute.  At the same time, a sound social media strategy has never been more critical to the health of a growing business’s inbound funnel.

Most of the challenges working against these brands come from poor social media team structure and organization. Whether you’ve got a team of one or a bevy of interns working on social, now’s the time to reassess how you build and incentivize your team for ROI and scalability.

That’s where HubSpot and Sprout Social’s new guide, How to Build and Manage a Social Media Team, comes in. Inside, you’ll find tips on:

• Structuring your team for social media ROI
• Looking for the right skills in a social media hire to complement your team
• Shortening the onboarding process by setting up new hires for success
• Measuring individual success to ensure your employees have a trajectory of career growth
• Preventing burnout with leadership and team-building activities

Click here to download How to Build and Manage a Social Media Team.

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7 Ways to Add Variety to Your Twitter Marketing

Do you want to improve your Twitter feed? Struggling to come up with ideas for your tweets? In this article, you’ll discover seven ways your business can tweet. #1: Run a Twitter Poll Research is the backbone of any good business decision, so why not ask your Twitter community for their opinion with a Twitter [...]

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- Your Guide to the Social Media Jungle

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