The other night I drove up to Sonoma to present to an MBA Entrepreneurship class on inbound marketing and how to scale a new venture. It was a great experience and very eye opening. The students are working to build their business models and develop business plans, yet none have their own blogs and only about 4 of the 30 are on Twitter. As Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah point out in their webinar, Everything We Wish We Learned about Startups (but didn't at MIT), marketing a critical factor in the success of a new startup. It's important to engage and build your community before you even write a line of code or hire an employee.
Here are a few marketing resources that I think every entrepreneur should check out.
Books
- Art of the Start - the time-tested, battle-hardened guide for anyone starting anything
- Blue Ocean Strategy - how to create uncontested market space and make competition irrelevant
- Crossing the Chasm - marketing and selling disruptive products to mainstream customers (the revised technology adoption lifecycle)
- The Long Tail - why the future of business is selling less of more
Blogs
Community and Events
- Stanford / MIT Venture Lab - events promote the growth and success of high-tech entrepreneurial ventures by connecting ideas, technology and people in Palo Alto
Free Tools
- Website Grader - A free SEO tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of your website
- Twitter 101 for Business - Tips from Twitter to get started, learn the lingo, and build your business presence on Twitter
- Marketing Hubs - links to articles, free webinars, guides, and kits for business blogging, social media marketing, search engine optimization and more
Know of other great resources for startups that should be added to the list?
word cloud created using Wordle
I love getting emails with 'Tweet This' or 'Facebook This' links built in because let's face it, I'm lazy. Unless it's the next best thing since sliced bread, I'm probably not going to take the time to go out to Twitter or Facebook, log in, and then post the update. But, if you've done all the heavy lifting for me then I might be more likely to help you push the info along.
Adding social media sharing buttons should be part of your email marketing best practices. Here's how to create Twitter and Facebook sharing links. If you want them to be images instead of links, just hyperlink the image instead of the text in your campaign. There are plenty of free icons out there.
Create a 'Tweet This' Link
http://twitter.com/home?status=How+To+Create+a+Tweet+This+or+Facebook+This+Link+http://hub.tm/tweetthis
You should create your own shortened URL first using Bit.ly or Hub.tm if the full website URL is too long. Remember you only have a total space of 140 characters.
Create a 'Facebook This' Link
http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http://www.erincolbert.com/bid/11570/How-To-Create-a-Tweet-This-or-Facebook-This-Link&t=How+To+Create+a+Tweet+This+or+Facebook+This+Link
Facebook with automatically grab a photo from the website to use as the thumbnail.
Over the holidays I discovered Groupon, a website that features local daily deals. The trick is that you can't get the deal until a minimum number of users have agreed to purchase the item (think Daily Candy meets Costco, minus the membership).
Collective buying is nothing new, but I think Groupon has really hit the nail on the head for it's target market - me. Their demographic is young, educated professional women - some single, some married. It's a fun site and my girlfriends have all picked up on it, sending me updates via Facebook, Twitter and email to spread the word and help them get over the top on deals like wine tasting in SF, ski packages, restaurant gift cards, and manicures.
For local small businesses like restaurants, gyms, theaters, and salons, Groupon is the perfect avenue to kick start their 2010 sales. My first Groupon was for Dream Dinners, $45 for 6 meals which normally costs $110. I'm already a customer so it was a no brainer. The woman who owns the local franchise would have been ecstatic to sell 50, with the minimum set at 24, but she ended up selling 453 groupons!
Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Rescue is holding their 3rd Annual Santa Photo with your Pets fundraiser at the
Pet Food Express in Palo Alto on Saturday, December 12th from 12pm to 4pm! Special "CATS ONLY" photo opportunity from 4pm to 4:30pm for dog-shy cats!
Please come out and bring all of your furry family members and have a photo taken with Santa to help raise money for the rescued kittens! 100% of the proceeds from this fundraiser go directly to
Itty Bitty Orphan Kitty Rescue and Palo Alto Animal Services.
Keepsake CD's with up to 10 high resolution photos are only $15. If you'd like to print your photo at the store, it is only $5. Along with your keepsake CD and any printed photos you take home with you, you will get a cute little holiday bag with lots of coupons and goodies! Every pet who visits Santa at this location on 12/12 will also receive a free pet treat from Pet Food Express and a 20% off coupon good for anything in the store.
Snacks and refreshments for humans and pets will also be provided. For futher details, please visit
www.ibokrescue.org or email
info@ibokrescue.org.
Provide a home, not a litter. =^..^=
I'm calling this the express inbound marketing because marketers always tell me they just don't have time to do everything they want. I give them ideas on little things they can do with the time they have, but they're always pushing for a task list. You asked (and you all know who you are), so I'm answering.
Here's the 5 step process every B2B marketer with limited time should follow to get inbound marketing success. The rate at which you complete these steps will determine how quickly you'll see success (a.k.a. do it more and you'll get more out of it, do it less and it will take longer to see results).
Step 1 - Create a compelling offer
This should be a truly compelling offer - not a contact sales form, request more information, or free consultation form. It needs to be something that your target audience will find valuable. If you can help it, this compelling offer should not mention your products or services at all. It should help your key market solve a problem they have. This can be things like a guide, kit, whitepaper, webinar, slide presentation, article, or video.
Examples: Website Re-Design Kit or New Homeowner's Guide to Purchasing Insurance
Step 2 - Put it on a landing page
Create a landing page with a form that encourages visitors to give you their contact information in exchange for this compelling offer. When creating the form fields be sure to think about how much information your target audience is willing to give up to get your offer. If you ask them for everything but their social security number just to download an article, they're probably not going to fill out the form - and neither would you! The number of form fields often highly correlates to the conversion rate of that landing page.
Step 3 - Write a blog article to promote the offer
Now, go to your blog and write an article that promotes the compelling offer you just created. Using my examples above, good blog posts might be titled, 5 Simple Steps to a Website Re-Design or What Every New Homeowner Should Know about Insurance. Then, create a call to action (ideally a graphical button, but text will do) at the bottom of your blog post and link it to your landing page.
Examples: Thinking of Re-Designing Your Website? Download the free Website Re-Design Kit to help you get started.
For more helpful tips, check out the New Homeowner's Guide to Purchasing Insurance.
Step 4 - Promote the blog article to your network
Go out and promote this blog article to your network. Post it to Twitter, your Facebook and LinkedIn status updates, the news section of relevant LinkedIn groups you've joined, look for LinkedIn and Yahoo! Answers to respond to, and send out an email to your database. Don't be shy, but don't be spammy either. Look for relevant places that your target audience might be spending time online and go there first.
Step 5 - Analyze and repeat
Now that the heavy lifting is complete it's time to analzye the results. See how much traffic your efforts brought in and the number of leads and customers that resulted. You should also track to see if you increased the number of blog subscribers, Twitter followers, LinkedIn connections, Facebook fans and so forth.
What did you learn? What could you do differently next time? Now, go do it and share your experiences below!
Inbound marketing is hard. But, it's not hard because you need to be
a genius to understand it (come on, it's not rocket science). The
concepts are pretty clear - create remarkable content, optimize it for
the search engines, promote it to your audience, and create
opportunities for conversions with compelling offers, then analyze and
repeat. It's hard because it takes time, energy and creativity.
The
number one complaint I hear from marketers is, "I don't have time to do
it." My response - "well, I guess your company just doesn't need any
more leads then." That usually gets their attention, but they still say
they don't have time. So what are these marketers doing? They're
attending trade shows, planning events, writing press releases, and
buying ad space - activities that aren't helping their bottom line.
Marketing has often been thought of as an expense for most companies,
when in reality, it should be a revenue generating department.
So, my advice to
marketers who say they don't have time for inbound marketing -
outsource. Gone are the days when a marketer can work for a company who
creates a product they know nothing about. Marketers need to be content
creation factories. You know what I'm talking about...you've seen those
marketers who work for silicon chip manufacturers or engineering firms
or biotech companies who have no idea what their company actually does.
How can they be thought leaders? How can they create remarkable content?
The
answer is, they can't. So they should find others who can and then
start learning. Learn by reading blogs, marketing books, attending
webinars, downloading whitepapers and articles. Become an inbound
marketing expert because your job and your company depend on it.
I've been missing from my blog for about a week now because I was down and out with a nasty flu. No, it wasn't the swine flu but it was still pretty bad and I'm still coughing. My mom sent me this info and it was helpful so I thought I'd share. Stay warm and healthy!
Know the Difference between a Cold and H1N1 Swine Flu
Symptom
| Cold | H1N1 Flu
|
Fever
| Rare
| Present in 80% of all flu cases, temp of 100F+ for 3-4 days is common |
Coughing
| Hacking, mucus-producing cough
| Non-productive, non-mucus producing cought (dry cough)
|
Aches
| Slight body aches
| Severe body aches and pains
|
Stuffy Nose
| Stuffy nose that resolves within a week
| Uncommon
|
Chills
| Uncommon
| 60% of people who have H1N1 flu experience chills
|
Tiredness
| Fairly mild
| Moderate to severe
|
Sneezing
| Common
| Uncommon
|
Sudden Symptoms
| Symptoms develop over a few days
| Rapid onset within 3-6 hours - hits hard and includes sudden symptoms like high fever, aches, and pains
|
Headache
| Uncommon
| Very common and present in 80% of flu cases
|
Sore Throat
| Common
| Uncommon
|
Chest Discomfort
| Mild to moderate
| Severe |
Photo credit: Artifex
Working with hundreds of marketers and business owners at my job, I often get requests for recommendations on LinkedIn. I like to give credit where credit is due but don't always take the time when it's needed. It got me thinking that setting aside 10 or 20 minutes a month to write a few recommendations without solicitation would be a good guesture.
Have you worked with someone recently who deserves a recommendation? Give 'em some LinkedIn love.