Marketing 101: Inbound Marketing Explained In the majority of “marketing circles”, one is faced with the following question: “How do I engage people”? With the explosion of the “information age“, we have had to face new realities. One of which is the development of “inbound marketing“. By typing “inbound marketing” into a search engine, HubSpot defines it as “creating and sharing content with the world. By creating content specifically designed to appeal to your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more“. We no longer wish to be engaged by door-to-door salesmen, pushy car dealers, or even a suggestion from a local retailer. Rather, we sit in front of our computer screen searching and shopping for items we’d like to prove as a worthy choice to purchase. We peruse the online inventories of local car dealers in search of a specific vehicle instead of pulling into the physical car lot to observe it with our own eyes under the watchful eyes of aggressive ever present car sale sharks. Is this an example of a modern desire to avoid confrontational sales people? For me personally, I believe that it’s a desire for efficiency and accurate knowledge regarding practical purchases. What would we do without CarFax? We’d do exactly what our fathers did in the past. Purchase a used vehicle that had been in some undisclosed car accident with a twisted frame that required frequent tire changes due to uneven wear. As marketing professionals, our desire to be efficient buyers should help our realization of the importance in information dissemination. Customers buy because of information and in many cases, make accurate, well thought-out decisions. A recent Fortune 500 company stated that over 95% of their first time retail visitors had already visited them on the web before ever entering their actual store. When planning your marketing budget, I recommend that you first consider how much you should be diverting from mass advertising and how much you should spend on in-bound marketing. In closing, please consider these stats: 1. Inbound marketing costs 62% less per lead than traditional, outbound marketing. 2. 78% of Internet users conduct product research online. 3. In the past year, Web-based email usage dropped a staggering 59% among 12-17 year olds, who prefer to communicate via text, instant messaging, and social networks. 4. 78% of business people use their mobile device to check email. 5. 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobile device while in-store, shopping for an item. 6. 84% of 25-34 year-olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising. 7. 57% of businesses have acquired a customer through their company blog. 8. 41% of B2B companies and 67% of B2C companies have acquired a customer through Facebook. 9....
Read More »
This article represents the ninth and final blog posting for my series “The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership”. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and learned from it. I wanted to use this also as a reminder to take this information and apply it to your professional life. Once you eliminated these seven deadly sins from your professional life, the sky is the limit! Employees and peers will want to follow you. Let’s do a quick re-cap of the “The 7 Deadly Sins of Leadership”. Sin #1 – Relevancy: As a leader, know what your focus should be and don’t get sidetracked. Stay relevant! Sin #2 – Dispassionate: True passion is not limited to a single focus. It is the way a great leader thinks about ALL THINGS. Sin #3 – Hypocrisy: We cannot guarantee to our followers that we will live flawlessly. However, we can promise them that we won’t live hypocritically. Sin #4 – Unnecessary Wars: A successful leader chooses carefully his battles. Just be sure you are the one who picks your fights. Don’t delegate that privilege to anyone but yourself. Sin #5 – Leadership Production: There can be no equivocation as a leader. Ted Turner’s desk motto says: “Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way”. Cursed is the leader who puts on the appearance without bearing the expected fruit. Sin #6 – The Soft Bribe: State your purpose, establish clear and simple policies, insist that everyone follow the policies and set the example. Then enforce fairly using generous doses of training, patience, example and reward. Sin #7 – The Wrong Bottom Line: What should trump, yet increase profits? Satisfied, mature and well-balanced employees. Will you ever be a perfect leader? No. Will I? No. However, my goal for this multi-part series was to help you become a better leader. My hope is that readers will at a minimum, take some of these recommendations and apply them to their professional lives. In doing so, not only are you improving your leadership style but you are creating a better work environment for all of your employees. If enough of us apply these changes, we become the antidote for a poisoned corporate society. Thank you for your readership! Be sure to bookmark this page for future reference and feel free to subscribe to my blog by registering on the right hand side of this page. There will be many quality blog series to come! Until next time. ...
Read More »
The importance of quality real estate photos We all know that the first impression is important and typically, is the most lasting impression. For years in real estate investing, everyone stressed the point about “curb appeal“. If your house didn’t have curb appeal, buyers would just keep driving on. The whole point of curb appeal is to get buyers to want to come in and take a look. Then make an offer! With the modern digital age, is curb appeal enough or do investors need more? Today, the majority of interested buyers have high-speed internet access and they use it! The internet has become almost as important as breathing in today’s business world! Whether potential customers buy online or research a purchase online, buyers are clicking through pages at high rates of speed! With all the clicking, there’s no doubt that they are skimming and skipping through pages. They are just waiting for something to pop out at them. IF something stands out, they may give it a few extra seconds of a glance before they move on. That is the most time you’ll have their attention. You spent so much time on that curb appeal. The interior, the tile, the floors, the kitchen and the baths. You have just a brief moment to capture the buyers attention long enough to get a click. So if your buyer is clicking through on a computer or a smartphone, are you willing to let that curb appeal go to waste because of a bland photograph? You put time and effort in every other aspect of your house. Don’t drop the ball when it comes down to the presentation! Remember, most buyers will visit your home online before they ever decide to drive out in front of it, and first impressions are most important! Just a thought to think about! So, the next time you find yourself staring back into your camera phone screen taking another selfie, save the memory space and go take some snapshots of your investment! It could be the deciding factor in your next sale. Be sure to check for future updates! Next time, I’ll be going over “The Importance of Photos, Part 2 – Should you let the agent take the photos of your investment?” ...
Read More »
In last Friday’s DIY video, we told you to keep an eye out for “Free Bonuses“. We previously kept a bonus and reused it in an updated and upgraded bathroom. In this video, we’ll give you another idea on what do with some of those “Bonuses“! Enjoy! ...
Read More »
