Inbound Marketing Blog

An email expert over at Hubspot once told me that, as marketers, we need to start marketing to people in the way we want to be marketed to. I could not agree more. When I start sifting through my emails first thing in the morning, the last thing I want to see is yet another email that brings absolutely no value to my day. I'm sure you think the same! So, why do businesses keep sending crappy (there really is no other word to describe them) emails that nobody wants to read?

If you are ready to put aside your old ways of viewing and implementing email marketing campaigns, you've come to the right place.

For the first several years from the advent of social media, businesses could take advantage of a HUGE audience to peddle their wares and promote their offerings FOR FREE. Could it be too good to be true?!?!

In short: yes.

In 1911, newspaper publisher William Randolph Hurst made an offer of $50,000 to the first person who could fly a plane from New York to LA in under 30 consecutive days. Calbraith "Cal" Perry Rogers took up the challenge.

Of course, Cal didn't have any money. He had the plane, but in the "good ole days" an airplane required a very large support crew. So, he started talking to businesses about possible sponsorship and was able to secure a sponsorship from Amour and Company for the 1911 Wright Flyer. The company had created a new grape soft drink and wanted to get the word out.

The Vin Fiz Flyer was born. Emblazoned with the logo for Vin Fiz and messages of "Drink Vin Fiz" and "Ideal Grape Drink," Cal began his journey across North America from Sheepshead Bay, New York on September 17, 1911. Not to be outdone, all of the support train cars, paid for by Armour and Company, also sported messages of "Drink Vin Fiz."

Of course, none of this changed the fact that the grape soda advertised as the "Sparkling Grape Drink" did not even come close to living up to its purported luster.

Years ago, in a different life, I was a sales manager in a different industry. I had ten sales associates working for me in outside sales. We won some and we lost some.

Whether we won a deal or lost a deal, I would ask my sales rep to debrief. I wanted to know how it all worked out. I was always much more interested in the reasons we lost deals than the reasons we won deals.

In that highly commoditized industry, more often than not, the reason for losing a deal came back as, "We were too expensive."

That always frustrated me; not because we were over-priced but because the sales rep didn't understand that price is only one part of the buying decision. It's usually not even the most important part.

Oh, this is fun. Two of my favorite things in one awesome title.

Okay, we, lamentably, aren't talking about food (the most perfect food) but we are actually talking about navigation on a website. You've seen it around… usually you'll see this menu structure in mobile views of your website but we are starting to see this more and more often in desktop views as well.

The real question is, "Do people know what these really are?"

What accounts for nearly a third of all mobile searches, has grown 50% faster than overall mobile searches in the past year, and is an element you can't afford to ignore? Location-related searches. Recently, Google announced that it is about to roll out a new way of displaying ads for mobile devices. This integration of ads into location-related searches gives advertisers a greater reach and more exposure. The question with this Google update roll-out is the same as with any update: "How does this affect my company?"

I am often asked what the difference in cost is between pay-per-click (PPC) and organic SEO. As obvious as it is to me what the differences are, when I try to explain it to others who are not as "nerdy" as I am, often the response I get is the deer in the headlights look. Mostly people think that you have to pay for ads on Google, Bing, etc., and not for organic first page rankings. Not the case.

Over time, I have attempted dozens of analogies to explain the differences between the costs of first-page placement for organic and PPC. I think that I may have finally found a way that helps people understand and that they can easily relate to- the cost of an athlete versus a non-athlete going to college.

"What can you do for me?"

Site visitors will be looking at many types of content on your website to try to uncover this information, but one effective way to help answer that question for them is to include a section for testimonials that showcase customer delight. When a site visitor reads success stories and learns how your business's products or services solved problems for your existing customers, it can help the new prospect move through the buyer's journey by showing them how they can benefit from working with you.

UPDATE: Thursday, April 14, we attended the Best Places to Work in Idaho award ceremony. It was a lovely event that brought together many of Idaho's top employers. As if it weren't enough to be surrounded by so many amazing people committed to being employers of choice, we also had the honor of accepting the award for 5th place in our category!

Each year Best Places to Work in Idaho awards several businesses in different categories the honor of being the best place to work. We are elated to announce that one of 2016’s winners in the category of Micro Employers (10 – 19 employees) was Tribute Media! We will now hold for applause and melodramatic adulation.