Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Jun 02, 2010 @ 10:35 AM
We often talk about (and promote) inbound marketing as an effective means of generating qualified sales leads via content creation, social media and lead capture strategies. But that's only half the battle. Once you have qualified leads, you want to convert them to customers, hopefully loyal, repeat customers over time. Inbound marketing by itself doesn't do that. "Closing the loop" refers to exchanging information back and forth between sales and marketing, however that's defined in your company, in order to optimize lead-to-customer conversions. Here's how we accomplish closed loop marketing using HubSpot and Salesforce.com.
HubSpot/Salesforce Integration
In case you're not familiar with HubSpot and Salesforce, HubSpot is the leading inbound marketing platform that incorporates content marketing, social media marketing, seo, lead generation and analytics under one roof. Salesforce.com is the leading online customer relationship management system (CRM). HubSpot has built-in integration with Salesforce, available in the Medium and Large packages. The first step is integrating the two platforms. Here is a step-by-step guide. You should become proficient at using both platforms using their excellent tutorials. Our sales and marketing team is already integrated, but if you have separate teams or departments, make sure that they are trained in using both platforms. This step will help your sales team understand the inbound marketing process and your marketing team will gain direct knowledge of the downstream sales process and the status of leads as they proceed through the sales funnel. Now that you've handled the nuts and bolts let's look at how we roll in closing the loop.
Closed Loop Marketing Workflow
- Lead Response - We have set up protocols so that when a lead comes into our Salesforce.com account from HubSpot, a designated member of our team always responds within one hour of notification. This gives the lead a great first impression and sets a time for a follow-up phone call.
- Lead Assignment and Classification - Each lead gets assigned to a sales person, who then becomes responsible for the account going forward. The sales person will review the lead information supplied by HubSpot landing pages and viewable from within Salesforce and update their status as having been contacted. A phone meeting is set up through Salesforce as an event, which appears on the sales person's calendar. All lead activities, opportunities and events are available to the entire team via reports that appear on each team member's Salesforce home page.
- Account Creation and Closing Steps - Following the initial sales call, unless it turns out to be a dud, we convert each lead into an Account, update any contact information need, and create an opportunity for the sale. If a demonstration or formal presentation is warranted, we set that up as a new event. In most cases we succeed in interesting the lead enough to request a sales proposal, which we create and store under the Notes & Attachments section, and we send them an e-mail with the proposal attached. We then set up a follow up call as an event within a few days of sending the proposal. During the follow up call we review the proposal and ask for the sale. More often than not, we succeed.
- Monthly Review - While we are constantly monitoring our lead, account and sales reports via Salesforce and HubSpot, we also schedule a monthly review with our team to address any problem accounts, training issues and to provide feedback for our inbound marketing efforts. Our goal is to have 1-2 new advanced content publications (such as webinars, e-books or social media promotions) running each month, so we evaluate the effectiveness of each in generating new, qualified leads that turn into customers.
Benefits of Closed Loop Marketing
We have already seen tremendous benefits from integrating our sales and marketing process via HubSpot and Salesforce. In general we are seeing:
- Improved response time to leads
- Higher lead-customer conversion rates
- Fewer lost opportunities due to inaction or lost information
- Higher productivity for our sales team (less time wasted looking for information)
- Improved customer relations due to sales force automation
- Improved inbound marketing content and social media marketing due to feedback from the sales team
We will quantify these results in a future post as we gather more data.
What tools do you use to close the loop between sales and marketing?
We can help you with your closed-loop marketing via HubSpot and Salesforce.
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Apr 14, 2010 @ 08:54 AM
If you missed yesterday's HubSpot classic video, "Foursquare Cops", you probably are alone. It went viral right away, and it's still creating lots of buzz as we speak. By way of a one line review, it's clever, funny and topical. It pushes all the right marketing buttons by making fun of Foursquare, one of the hottest new social media apps, and by showing off HubSpot's creative talent. Is it about inbound marketing? Not specifically, but who cares? The video rocks, and because of that, it spreads like wildfire on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and everywhere else. But is this kind of viral video success story within reach for you and me? That is the question.
Creating a Viral Video Is Not Easy
Think about what draws you to a video and compells you to refer it to a friend (or millions of them). They're usually funny, original, well-produced and timely. Sometimes they're just lucky, in the sense that someone captured something amazing on video by being in the right place at the right time. More often, they require a great idea, planning, time, people and talent. Few businesses have all of these components in-house, so they hire professionals to get the job done right. The more steps involved, the less spontaneous the video becomes, and spontaneity seems to be a key factor in video popularity. Producing a video can also be expensive and time-consuming. Yes, you can come up with a great video on the cheap, but how many of these attract more fans than your immediate family and friends? As in any other kind of marketing, if the potential for generating new leads outweighs the cost, it's worth a shot.
What can you do to grab some of the viral spotlight for your company?
The best advice I can offer is to round up the most creative people you have and ask them for ideas. Ultimately, you want to foster a creative culture that attracts talent from within as well as from outside your company. Not easy to do. HubSpot is a great example. They look for people with ideas, then they turn them loose. It takes commitment as well. You can't just say, "OK staff, go out and make me a viral video". You have to assign resources and time, or it will never happen. Don't expect to go viral on the first or second try. Again, it's not easy to know what will catch fire and what will fizzle. You have to swing at a few pitches before you understand the pitcher.
What are your plans or experiences with viral video?
Posted by John McTigue on Mon, Apr 05, 2010 @ 09:25 AM
If you're interested in inbound marketing, you know about HubSpot. They're the industry leaders in inbound marketing software, and their customer list is growing rapidly among small and large companies in all industries, b2b or b2c. An important new development within the past year has been the HubSpot Certified Partner program, in which agencies must pass a rigorous exam on inbound marketing and HubSpot technology in order to become certified. Partner agencies are qualified to sell inbound marketing services and are promoted via the HubSpot Service Marketplace. Here's how these partner agencies add value to companies engaged in inbound marketing.
Extending Your Team
Partner agencies can create a working strategy and plan for your company, then, depending on the scope of the service contract, do some or all of the work to get your company found online, capture leads and convert them to customers. Services may include:
Improving Results
You can work with your Certified HubSpot Partner to achieve specific goals, such as improved web traffic, keyword ranking and lead conversion. You can monitor progress through the HubSpot reports and optimization tools. You can improve your own staff's understanding and experience in inbound marketing by having them work side-by-side with your HubSpot partner with the goal of eventually bringing all of the work in-house.
Going Beyond
Your HubSpot Partner agency has a different perspective in addition to being an inbound marketing agency. Most of the Partners have strong experience in advertising and marketing, internet marketing and web design. They can leverage this experience to provide you with an optimized strategy and use their knowledge to create and manage goal-oriented marketing campaigns both online and offline. They can make your HubSpot website stand out from the crowd. They can find the right mix of marketing to fit your company's objectives and budget.
Hire a HubSpot Certified Partner today! You'll be glad you did.
Posted by John McTigue on Thu, Mar 18, 2010 @ 12:25 PM
Congratulations! Your brand new HubSpot Super Mach-12 swept wing mega-fighter* got delivered yesterday. Now you can dominate the marketing skies like no other brand and bring your pilots home to talk about it. Yes, we're talking about the inbound marketing force multiplier that's the envy of every marketing airforce around the world. Now what? Oh yeah, we need to fly this thing before we can rule the skies.
Let's see, looks like we'll need...
Strategy - we can't just fly anywhere and waste a bunch of fuel and ordinance. We don't want to rain bombs down on our friends' heads. We'll need an inbound marketing strategy, social media policies, people to do the work and more people to analyze the results.- Training - hmmm, not quite as simple as the video games, huh? We'll need an experienced partner to help us learn the ropes.
- Design - gotta scrape those HubSpot labels off the wings and put our own insignia on there. Gotta make the enemy run when they see us coming. We'll need a design team for that.
- Maintenance - hmmm, this thing cost us a bunch of money. Let's make sure we use it right, first time, every time. Let's test and analyze to keep this baby humming at mach 12.
- Impact - ok, so the training and all may take us a while before we're the top aces in the skies. Maybe we should bring on some pros to drive this thing for us for a while, wear our uniforms and scare the heck out of our enemies. When we're ready, we'll jump into the pilot's seat and wreak havoc.
Where do we go for all of that?
Well, good thing HubSpot has certified partners performing these services. These guys all had to pass rigorous tests before they could fly the Mach-12, so we know they're the best of the best. We can even compare them side-by-side and contact them for quotes. OK, is everybody clear on the mission? Oorah!
* No, it's not really a HubSpot Mach-12 fighter. It's a McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15 Eagle, and no it's not owned by HubSpot, and no there's no HubSpot Air Force, although the way they are growing, you never know...
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Feb 24, 2010 @ 09:47 AM
Thousands of companies are now using the HubSpot content management system to host their websites and take advantage of the built-in inbound marketing tools. HubSpot offers several standard design templates for "from-scratch" websites and a migration service for replicating the designs of existing sites. HubSpot doesn't offer custom website designs that are integrated into the HubSpot CMS. That's one of the services offered by several Certified HubSpot Partners.
The tricky part of custom HubSpot design is adapting a web design to one of the chosen HubSpot templates, since there isn't (yet) any way to adapt a free-form design to the CMS without going through a base template. The current process requires three steps:
- Understand the layout architecture of HubSpot templates and adapt your design to match the primary HTML elements in a chosen template.
- Slice your graphic design concept into HTML using the main template elements so that the underlying architecture is preserved.
- Adjust the custom cascading stylesheet in the HubSpot CMS to adapt your custom design to the chosen template.
This sounds like a pretty restrictive set of requirements, limiting your ability to use many creative design elements and styles, but much can be accomplished in spite of the rules. Here are some before and after examples to show you some of the possible range in custom HubSpot designs:
Before: "Foxboro" Template for HubSpot CMS
Check out these other great designs. If you are interested in a custom HubSpot design, please give us a shout.
Posted by John McTigue on Sat, Oct 10, 2009 @ 08:34 AM
Since we started using HubSpot inbound marketing tools three months ago, our website traffic, Google page rank, ranked keywords and lead conversions are way up. How did we do it? Here's how.
SEO Strategy
We started with keyword research using HubSpot Keyword Grader. We looked at our previous website experience and took a look at our competitors' sites. We started tracking many keywords appropriate to our business but decided to focus on long-tail keywords that we had a good chance to rank on.
On-Page SEO
We optimize our web pages and blog posts by adding our targeted keywords to titles, url's, headings, image file names and alt tags and link text. We use HubSpot Page Grader to assist us in this process. Page Grader advises us when any of these on-page seo elements are missing.
Inbound Links
We promote our blogs, web pages and landing pages using social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and bookmarking sites like Digg, Delicious and StumbleUpon. We make it easy for visitors to bookmark our pages and posts and subscribe to our RSS feed using social media widgets. These tactics spread the word about our posts and create inbound links. We also engage in social media through groups and communities, building trust and authority, which help to increase traffic and inbound links.
Monitoring
We are constantly monitoring our results using the HubSpot Reports, checking traffic, keyword rankings, inbound links and leads. As you can see below we have improved our Google top 10 keyword rankings by around 600% in a short period of time and are now ranking in the top 100 for many more. Our strategy is to keep up the good work and watch these results improve with time. Ultimately, our goal is to increase high-quality leads and convert those leads to sales, and thanks to the HubSpot inbound marketing tools, our goal is made far easier to attain.
How are you search engine optimizing your website?
Posted by John McTigue on Thu, Oct 01, 2009 @ 02:03 PM
So you had 1000 new visitors to the website last night... How many of them are now fresh, promising leads? None? Not sure? It's time for a lead-capture tune-up.
I think it must be a hangover from the 90's Internet bubble that many business owners still think that getting on Google page #1 is the end of the rainbow. Get your web traffic up and your business will grow. I'm not bashing SEO mind you. Getting on page #1 is definitely a good thing because it can drive visitors to your site, but the question is, then what? What good does it do you to have a gazillion visitors and no new business? We've been over this before, but your Website needs to be tuned to capture leads and convert them to customers.
Step 1 - Strategy
Put yourself in your potential customers' shoes. What do you have to offer them that they really want? When they sign up, who will contact them? When will you contact them? How will you contact them and what will you say? Draw up your game plan and stick to it.
Step 2 - Communicate and Make Calls to Action
Make simple and attractive buttons or graphics that communicate the value of your offer and invite them to click through. Put these calls-to-action in prominent places on your site that can't be missed by the casual visitor.
Step 3 - Ice the Deal With a Landing Page
Each call-to-action should link to an effective landing page. Design the page to be simple and appealing to the eye. State the value of your offer and give them some more detail - what's in it for the visitor. Give them only one option, to click on your sign-up link. Minimize or hide all other options, including navigation menus. Make your sign-up button and headings action-oriented, like "Sign Me Up to Save $100". Don't make them think - tell them what to do.
Step 4 - Monitor New Leads and Respond Quickly
Don't let your new fish off the line. Make sure you have a lead nurturing program set up - i.e. set up a series of e-mails that follow-up on your prospect and contact them personally by e-mail or, ideally, by phone.
Step 5 - Follow Up and Close the Deal
Get a meeting set up, whatever you do. Get some one-on-one time and explain who you are, what you're selling and why they need to buy from you. There is no time to separate sales and marketing these days - they are one and the same, so market and sell in one breath.
Step 6 - Measure and Analyze
No person or strategy is perfect, so measure the leads and conversions to customers relative to your marketing content, calls-to-action, landing pages and follow-ups. What works best? Fine-tune your strategy to increase conversion rates and sales.
Now you've gotten your website up to speed. Now you can actually gain something from all that SEO juice. Go forth and prosper.
We use HubSpot software to capture and nurture leads. Sign up today for a free demonstation of HubSpot and consultation about your business.
Posted by John McTigue on Wed, Sep 16, 2009 @ 01:45 PM
Avon, Ohio – September 16, 2009 – Kuno Creative, a strategic marketing company based in Avon, Ohio, is now a Certified HubSpot Partner. After undergoing a rigorous training course and passing the HubSpot certification exam, Kuno Creative is now one of only thirteen agencies that are certified. HubSpot software is a unique suite of web based tools enabling content marketing, social media marketing, lead capture and tracking and results monitoring that are the core disciplines of Inbound Marketing. Inbound Marketing is a new Internet marketing strategy designed to increase brand awareness and sales through relationships fostered in online communities by publishing content that is relevant to a target audience. Kuno’s Inbound Marketing Services include marketing strategy, setting up the HubSpot platform, integrating it with a client website or designing a new website, blog writing and other content creation, social media promotion and engagement, and measurement and analysis.
"We are pleased to become an official HubSpot partner," said Chris, Knipper, Kuno Creative's President and CEO. "We have been using the software for several months ourselves with great success. We are seeing a large increase in our own website traffic and capturing many more leads than ever before. We see Inbound Marketing as an important new asset that we can offer our clients to improve their sales and marketing results. What makes us unique is that we are a full-service marketing agency that also understands technology, and we’re not afraid to lead the way."
"John and Chris at Kuno Creative have aggressively ramped up on their HubSpot and inbound marketing knowledge", said Peter Caputa, HubSpot's Partnership Manager. "I'm extremely impressed with how they've leveraged their traditional design and copy creation skills to become successful inbound marketers. All of the new inbound marketing methods such as blogging, SEO and creative online lead generation require top notch design and content creation skills. Unlike most traditional marketers, they also possess the analytical and technical skills required to be successful online marketers. Their years of experience as marketers working with small and mid sized businesses gives them a large advantage over other internet marketers that started their marketing careers on the web. I don't hesitate recommending Kuno for design work, as well as ongoing strategic inbound marketing services."
About Kuno Creative
Kuno Creative provides inbound marketing, brand marketing and website development services that help our clients gain maximum ROI from their marketing investments. We are Certified HubSpot Partners, providing best-in-class inbound marketing strategy, design and integration with HubSpot software, training and support, content creation and promotion, web analytics and lead tracking. Based in Avon, OH, we serve small to medium sized business throughout the United States. We offer a free website analysis and comparison with your competitors. Please visit our website at www.kunocreative.com and read our blogs at www.kunocreative.com/blog.
About HubSpot
HubSpot, Inc. provides Internet marketing software that helps businesses get found online, generate more inbound leads and convert a higher percentage of those leads into paying customers. HubSpot's software platform includes tools that allow professional marketers and small business owners to manage search engine optimization, blogging and social media, as well as landing pages, lead intelligence and marketing analytics. Based in Cambridge, MA, HubSpot can be found at http://www.hubspot.com. HubSpot offers free marketing tools at http://www.grader.com and hosts a free marketing community at http://inboundmarketing.com.
Posted by John McTigue on Thu, Sep 10, 2009 @ 07:21 AM
We recently completed rebuilding our website using the Hubspot Inbound Marketing software platform. That’s two complete website makeovers in the course of one year. Why did we decide to rebuild, and why did we choose Hubspot?
Giving credit where it’s due, we were introduced to Inbound Marketing at the beginning of 2009 via several webinars and marketing kits published by Hubspot. Few other sources were talking about it at the time, let alone providing valuable how-to’s and strategies.
I decided to find out much more about Inbound Marketing by embarking on a self-taught mission with the goal of learning by doing. I started blogging, tweeting, commenting and engaging in a wide range of social networking sites. I chronicled my adventures in a blog series called Inbound Marketing Journal. At the end of a few months I had a sizable following and had learned enough to write my own Inbound Marketer’s Handbook, an e-book for small business owners and marketing executives designed as a business insider’s overview of the strategy and tactics of Inbound Marketing. This step is one of the recommended building blocks of Inbound Marketing strategy and has been successful in exposing our ideas and services to a new online community.
At this point we knew that Inbound Marketing was a powerful way to improve brand awareness and sales, but how could we incorporate it into our everyday business and provide it as a service for our clients? After attending the Inbound Marketing Summit in Dallas, I knew what we had to do. Hubspot software was the key ingredient. Our first step must be to make our own website a powerful Inbound Marketing engine using Hubspot – to improve our online exposure, capture leads and convert them to customers. Then we could demonstrate our expertise using a real working website. We decided to retool our entire site to fit our new strategy. The design, keyword-rich content, calls-to-action and landing pages are all crucial components of getting found online and converting visitors to customers. We launched our new site a few weeks ago, and already we are seeing greatly increased web traffic and leads. We use the Hubspot KeywordGrader, PageGrader, BlogGrader, LinkGrader and LeadTracker every day to optimize our blogs and pages, monitor results and keep things rolling.
No, I’m not a paid Hubspot employee. It may sound that way because I am an advocate. With full disclosure in mind, we are a Certified Hubspot Partner, which means that we sell and support their software. There are many technologies available in social media marketing, seo and blogging, but none of them work together in one coherent framework like Hubspot software. That’s why we chose it. Rebuilding your web site and changing your marketing strategy may seem like a daunting and perhaps expensive task. Consider the cost of standing still, however. How expensive is it each time one of your competitors grabs a great client from your grasp? In our competitive market rebuilding our site using Hubspot was a no-brainer.
How does your website stack up against your competitors?
Click here for a free report.
Posted by John McTigue on Thu, Aug 20, 2009 @ 11:31 AM
Six months ago we started on a journey into Inbound Marketing and blogged about it in our Inbound Marketing Journal. We discovered that Inbound Marketing not only helped us sell our own services, but it came up time after time in discussions with our clients. Everyone wanted to know how they could transform their web sites into sales and marketing machines that powered their businesses. We knew the answer was Inbound Marketing, with its unique blend of content creation (blogs, videos, webinars...), social media engagement and web analytics. Every client was interested and no one had a clue how to get started.
The next step for us, transforming ourselves into an Inbound Marketing Agency, was an easy decision but difficult to do in practice. There's a lot to think about and much to prepare. We first became proficient ourselves in content marketing and social media promotion. We put our experiences and advice for small businesses into a free whitepaper download called Inbound Marketer's Handbook, which became an instant hit and helped us work with our clients. Much thought went into developing an Inbound Marketing Strategy and figuring out how to deliver services such as blog writing, social media engagement and measurement of results. There were many technologies available, but few of them seemed to work together in an easy way.
Our services offering began to gel when we took the Hubspot 7 day trial for prospective partners. We liked Hubspot for all of the services we now provide, and learned how to use it through their Hubspot Partner program and by transforming our own website into a Hubspot-powered site. Now we are putting all we have learned into practice with our clients and looking forward to reporting many success stories down the road. We are looking forward to those transformations as well.