Partner Views Blog

In my last blog I suggested that Pinterest may not be good for your inbound marketing strategy. My main point was not that Pinterest is not a good strategy for inbound marketing but that if your customers are not on Pinterest then it is not a good strategy. On the other hand if your customers are there then Pinterest is a great strategy. The mistake not to make is assuming you know how best to market on a social media platform based on your partial understanding of how it works, who you think would be interested in it, or if you think it is a good idea or not. Look at the statistics and the demographics then decide what would be best.

In my last blog on whether you should use Pinterest for your inbound marketing plan I mentioned that the platform was made for collectors and that it drives more referral traffic then YouTube, Google Plus and LinkedIn combined. Even with over 21 million users Pinterest may not be the best platform for you. Just because a social media platform has a lot of users and is very successful does not mean that you should use it for your inbound marketing strategy. A personal example would be StumbleUpon. According to shareaholic SutmbleUpon has the second highest traffic referral rates and fairly decent user base of 16 million worldwide users. Indeed, 14% of inbound traffic to my website from social media sites has come from StumbleUpon. Yet I have not received one lead from that traffic. I get less traffic from Twitter and Facebook but more leads. For some reason StumbleUpon and my site just don’t click. That’s fine, I do a lot better on LindedIn with my largest share of traffic and leads coming from organic search. Just because a site is popular does not mean it’s a good fit.

For one of the many who just recently found out about Pinterest I find the platform a lot of fun, every interesting and a bit addicting. If you are not familiar with Pinterest it is a lot like keeping a scrap book without bothering with the scissors and paste. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail and explain how it works or how to set up an account; the best place to do that would be Pinterest’s About page. One thing though, you just can’t set up a Pinterest account, you must be invited. If you would like to be invited send me an email at tim@imagemediapartners.com and I’ll invite you to join Pinterest. 

This great Infographic on the History of Marketing just came out from HubSpot and I had to share it. My blog has been involved in the various aspects of online marketing, mobile marketing and Inbound Marketing and this Infographic lays out a great timeline on the history of marketing and where Inbound Marketing fits in. Most of the space on this timeline is taken up with the last 90 years because the innovations and technologies of the Twentieth Century have been behind much of the changes in marketing. The last 20 years of the digital age has seen a tremendous number of changes but the last eight or so years has been the Age of Inbound Marketing.

According to Nielsen’s latest figures on smart phone purchases by US Consumers, Apple’s iPhone 4S is closing the gap on Android. Overall Apple’s operating system now accounts for 30% of all smartphone users as opposed to Android’s 46.3%. The operating system that has been losing ground is the RIM Blackberry with only 14.9% of the market share. This is interesting in itself but I think that the bigger news from Nielsen is, “As of Q42011, 46 percent of US mobile consumers had smartphones, and that figure is growing quickly.” Another more revealing study shows that 62% of Mobile Users 25-34 own Smartphones. With the number of people owning smartphones growing and the market pretty much split between Apple and Android there are five very important things you need to do to make your website accessible to mobile smartphones. 

During the past few weeks there have been some interesting discussions on the Beer & Social Media LinkedIn Group on breweries and pubs using Twitter as part of their social media plan. If you are at all associated with beer, wine or spirits and social media you may want to check this LinkedIn group out. They are very active and I’ve found the members to be very helpful. Recently one of the members posted a question about starting and managing a Twitter account for a beer wholesaler and received a lot of great advice. I’m going to try and summarize and list the advice given. Now, this will apply to beer wholesalers, retailers, distributors, breweries, brewpubs, pubs, bars and anyone involved in beer and social media. In fact a lot of this advice will transfer to most other businesses. (For more tips look at my blog: 12 Social Media Restaurant Marketing Tips from The Bowery.)

When you consider a website redesign make sure that you do a thorough social media evaluation. A key to inbound marketing, and a critical part of your website, is promotion and getting found. After you create interesting content and optimize the content so that it can be found you need to promote the content. Social media is one of the tools you can use to promote your website and its content but simply putting a “like” button above your blog is not enough. There are three questions you must ask about your plan when doing a social media evaluation:

When you are redesigning your website there are a number of things that affect landing page conversion rates; the color of the call-to-action button on your website, the description of your offer, or if you have a photograph on the landing page or not. The problem is that there is no right or wrong answer on how to improve conversion rates and no master style book that says to do one thing or another. The best course of action is to experiment and try different things. Do more people click a call-to-action button when the button is red or green? Do more people sign up for your newsletter when the sign up form is long or short? Do more people respond to your blog or your newsletter? Do you get more visitors to your offers from Facebook or Twitter? It is important to conduct experiments and try different offers, social media channels, landing pages and calls-to-action to see what works best. Get rid of tactics that don’t work and duplicate those that do work. If one type of offer gets more response then make more offers that are like it and stop making offers that don’t work.

For the past few weeks we have been looking at what to consider when you redesign your website. After the last blog on landing pages it should be evident that increasing your conversion rate, converting a website visitor into a lead, is the main goal of your website. This may mean getting a visitor to sign up for your newsletter, download an e-book, get a coupon, or sign up for a consultation. This is the goal of the process that starts with optimizing your website so that it can be found; providing original content that attracts visitors such as your blog and e-books; promoting the content on your website and through social media; setting up your website so it is easy to navigate and find content; and providing a landing page where in exchange for their e-mail address they get original and valuable content.

A landing page is the place where you turn a website visitor into a lead. Your first offers are not where you turn the visitor into a customer, but it is where you connect with those who may be interested in your business. When you have their e-mail address you can update them about new material on your website that may interest them or tell them about new material that they can download for free. After nurturing the lead you can offer them more information or invite them to become a customer. For example a gym may send an email to someone who has already downloaded two e-books and invite them in for a free exercise and fitness evaluation at the gym. A tax preparation business may offer everyone on their e-mail list a discount for preparing their first tax return.