Top 10 Lessons Learned to Reach High Performance Marketing
Recently I received my Inbound Marketing Certification, which represents a proficiency in blogging, social media, SEO, lead generation and nurturing, and closed-loop analysis. At the end of the day, what this really means is that I understand how to best use technology to optimize marketing efforts and the likelihood of "Getting Found."
After 100+ hours of immersion in internet marketing, here are my road-tested, super-easy Top 10 Lessons Learned to Reach High Performance Marketing.
- Make Twitter your friend. PR Newswire and Crowd Factory recently announced that Twitter generated 30% more traffic to press releases than Facebook. By investing 20 minutes each day in participating on Twitter and growing your Follower-reach, you will have a much higher response when you tweet out exciting new corporate announcements.
- Always say "Please" and "Thank You." Just because you aren't dealing with people face-to-face, doesn't mean you can forget your manners. First impressions online are crucial, so remember to be gracious, helpful and kind.
- Never assume that once is enough. Even if you write a blog post full of remarkable content, doesn't mean that everyone will see it, simply because of the audience cycles and peak traffic times. Offer up the same bit of content in several different ways over time, just change your tweet language or the manner in which it's delivered (e.g., company newsletters, personalized notes to colleagues, new tweets, etc.).
- Testing is an endless cycle. Vigilance and testing is imperative to finding what works best and optimizing marketing practices. For example, test which email subject lines get you the best response rate or which landing pages convert the most visitors. Your audience and competitors are evolving all the time, so you should be too.
- Long-tail keywords = saved money + less work for you. Long-tail keywords are keywords that website visitors use to find you on search engines that are niche to your services and audience (for example, "craft beer des moines" or "custom suit tailoring"). These keywords drive more qualified to your website and/or blog. Pick 10-25 to use when optimizing your site and blog posts. You will save money on paid searches each month with a long-tail keyword strategy.
- Check yourself weekly on Klout. Klout is a website that evaluates your impact on the internet (pretty intimidating/motivating, huh?). Your Klout score changes daily; it is a pretty solid reflection of the people and topics you are a major influencer of. Get your Klout score today and check it often as a benchmark and competitive analysis (you can look up how your competitors are doing).
- Email marketing is a gift from the Interweb gods. Email marketing is an excellent way to quickly nurture clients and prospects. Email marketing can be used for newsletters, nuturing campaigns, product roll-outs and outbound marketing efforts with the major benefit serving as a platform for systematic and periodic touchpoints to contacts. Editorial note: take the necessary steps to be CAN-SPAM compliant.
- Liking CRM isn't nearly as tough as you think. CRM is an excellent place to set-up and run campaigns, track Lead and Account progress, and keep all data in one accessible bucket. I used Salesforce CRM to plan Doextra's events and schedule email communications. Without it, I would be a slave to Excel sheets and not nearly as productive in maintaining lead generation and customer relationships.
- Don't try to be fancy, just be consistent. Some people simply try to do too much and in the process become sloppy and inconsistent. Choose several social platforms where you know you are most effective and build conversations and a consistent information output.
- Input, input, input. The learning process is never over. Constantly re-invest in your knowledge of new products, networks and developments in the technology world. Don't wait for the bandwagon and old news. Keep up on websites, such as mashable.com and techcrunch.com.
Do you have a favorite lesson learned? Please share!
Image by Marketing Movil.