Amplified Content Marketing

by Michael Stuart

You are here: Home / Archives for leads

leads

Social media Best posting times

Curated by

Social Media Image

Social media marketing centers around getting the attention of your present and prospective customers.

What is the best time to post on social media?

“The best time to post on social media is when your customers (both present and prospective) are online”.

When to post on Social Media in 2020

Social media eCommerce trends indicate that the use of social networks for eCommerce is on the rise with an estimated global eCommerce sales of $4.5 trillion by 2021, a 246.15% rise. Hence, questions like why post on social media and what are the implications of not posting on social media are becoming more and more irrelevant. Now, the only question that needs to be answered is when to post on social media for maximum engagement.

Best time to post on social media in 2020 – Facebook

  • It is more or less safe to post on Facebook on weekdays between 1 pm to 4 p.m. for those who would like to indulge in a bit of online shopping during lunch hours at work.
  • The best time to post on Facebook for online retail brands is not one single time slot but rather a few optimum times are present:
    • Wednesday between 11am-3pm
    • Thursday at 2 p.m. and 4 pm
    • Friday between 10 am to 3 pm
  • Weekends are usually considered to have the lowest engagement rates for consumer goods brands.


What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for FacebookSince Facebook’s audience is highly coveted by online businesses simply because of its sheer reach, you could have a regular flow of informational content, industry news and updates, and product promotions. These will generate brand loyalty and increased sales. Remember to have an effective CTA to your posts on Facebook, like Steam Horse Dry Goods Co. below. The post is crisp, to the point and has a clear CTA.

Best time to post on social media in 2020– Instagram

  • The safest times to post are every day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
  • The best time to post on Instagram for online retailers is Saturdays and particularly at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m.
  • Wednesday has been seen as the day with the most engagement.
  • Monday is the least engaged day for consumer goods, maybe because people are more likely to catch up on work, and everyone, in general, is more focused on getting ready for the week ahead.

What to post on social media for your business: A Guide for InstagramPrimarily a photo sharing app, Instagram is highly impacted by product images and is a key driver of brand awareness for eCommerce. New product launches, lifestyle posts, and user-generated content teamed up with effective hashtags have been seen to be doing really well on Instagram. You could also post short videos.

Best time to post on social media in 2020 – Twitter

  • The safe time to post on Twitter is between 1 to 3 p.m. every day.
  • The best day and time to post on Twitter for eCommerce brands is on Saturdays at 1 p.m.
  • Sunday has been reported to be the lowest in terms of engagement but has seen some engagement at 11 a.m. and between 1 to 4 p.m. on this day.

Some other types of content to post on social media sites

  1. Posts of your company
  2. Industry news
  3. Curated content
  4. Questions
  5. Videos
  6. Advice
  7. Memes 
  8. Contests
  9. Holiday Posts
  10. Links to freebies

How to post on Social Media? – Apps that post on social media for you

Very often you might be required to post to multiple social media accounts at once, and it can be very daunting for those who don’t know how to post on social media. Here are some tools that will help you with this:

  1. Hootsuite

Hootsuite is a great tool which enables you to schedule your posts across all major social media pages at specific times. Available both as a free and paid version, this is an excellent tool to publish and monitor your posts on multiple platforms from one single screen. It also has an “auto-schedule” option which is based on the company’s own knowledge on the best time to post on Instagram or on Facebook. 

  1. Hubspot

Apart from publishing and monitoring, if you are also looking for an app that will also do the reporting for you, Hubspot is the app to go to. It provides a closed-loop reporting data, which means that you’re not just seeing which channels are giving you the most engagement, you can also track the funnel down further to see which posts are driving actual leads and sales.

  1. TweetDeck

If you are focusing on just Twitter, you should not look any farther than TweetDeck. Apart from being one of the oldest to be around, it is one of the best too. You can follow several conversations at once with this tool, and it is actually quite fun at times.

  1. IFTTT (or Zapier)

This is a Trigger-and-action tool. Acronym for ‘If This Then That’, IFTTT is an automation tool that can save you a lot of time while it manages your social platforms effectively. The tool links your website, social media pages, and apps based on a trigger and an action. Based on a particular trigger you create, it starts an action. For example, if you publish a blog (the trigger), then IFTTT will automate and create a tweet (the action) about it.


  1. Raven

Apart from allowing you to access data and schedule posts from a variety of social media platforms, Raven provides reports from information gathered about pay-per-click (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and social media channels. Thus, you get insights on topics like what the best time to post on Instagram is or if SEO is a better channel than PPC campaigns.

  1. Buffer (DLVR.it)

Buffer or Dlvr.it are advanced applications that provide Automated scheduling and engagement analysis.

Conclusion There is really no magic rule to engage with users. Every brand is different and so are their respective audiences.

 

What’s Your Story?

Curated by

Brand storytelling is an art and a science, and in today’s world it had better be highly strategic.

Storytelling should convey not only what a company does, but who it is, and why—as well as tap into the emotions of its readers all at the same time. 

Five steps to help tell your story

1: Authentic

Storytelling should convey who you are as a company and not only focus on what you do. Improving your brand’s story involves tapping into the power of emotions and connecting with your consumers on a personal level. Be authentic. Make your readers feel something. Feelings cultivate brand affinity.

  • Loyal customers are willing to stick with a brand even if presented with meaningful and available alternatives if they feel an emotional connection. Strong emotional connections to retailers result in 32% more store visits and 46% more money spent, according to a recent Gallup poll.
  • There are seven emotions that result in stronger sales through increased customer connections, fear, frustration, hope, excitement, anger, fear of missing out, and desire to be first. If you can tell your story in a way that makes the consumer connect with one of these feelings, a sale may be imminent.

 

2: Take a Stand

Make your storytelling demonstrate that you have a clear understanding of trends and current issues happening in your consumers’ world.

  • Quickly State the Problem: Today’s consumers are bombarded with messages; statistics show brands have eight seconds to get a consumer’s attention. If your message doesn’t resonate immediately, you’ve lost. Win your consumers over by demonstrating that you understand their challenges and can provide a solution.
  • Be Timely: What is top of mind today? Review and analyze current headlines and social trends to make connections whenever and wherever possible with your brand. Demonstrating this level of knowledge is a convincing way to engage consumers.
  • Share Your Mission: Define your brand responsibility in society. What is your corporate mission? What issues does your brand stand behind and how do you support those causes? Create communications that share the work you’re doing and publicize it via print, online, and social channels.
  • Take a Stand: Consumers are loyal to brands with a conscience and respond favorably to companies who own their truth.

 

3: Technology

Technology should be at the heart of all your storytelling efforts. From initial concept to optimizing keywords, technology can amplify your brand message across all channels. However, technology for technology’s sake is an endless road. To achieve maximum results, your technology investment in brand storytelling should include: Ease of Use: The ability to host multiple web pages, images, and conversations simultaneously, managed with a platform that lets you publish content and respond to consumer comments quickly and easily, is essential. Distribution Across Channels: Your brand needs a solution that allows you to publish across any channel. Consumers want to hear from brands where and when they want, so if you aren’t delivering your message on their desired device at the time they want it, your brand isn’t maintaining consistent user experience. Measurement Tools: Successful marketers understand the importance of analyzing how and where content is consumed. A key to your success is adjusting content accordingly when measurement tools report that certain communications are underperforming.

 

4: Change

Marketers and content contributors have to master different channels and content as new devices are introduced. Each channel comes with its own set of rules for display experiences and mastering those techniques is essential. Make sure that the quality of your communications doesn’t diminish when published across various channels. Don’t be afraid to try new forms of content. The written word is just one of many ways brands are creating emotional connections with consumers. Videos and images can also be powerful communication tools that resonate.

5: Stats

Your brand story is always a work in progress and it’s important to measure the success/reach of each component to discover which topics, types, and channels perform best. Pay attention to all the specifics you can: bounce rates, social metrics, conversions, leads, etc. Are you analyzing things like the number of visits, sessions, channel-specific traffic, and any other metrics that are important to your particular business?

You have a big opportunity to inspire consumers through effective storytelling and complementing this with the right technology is key to success. Implementing these tips will help you build stronger consumer relationships and increase engagement.

Source: econtentmag.com

What’s Your Story?

Curated by

Brand storytelling is an art and a science, and in today’s world, it had better be highly strategic.
 
Storytelling should convey not only what a company does, but who it is, and why—as well as tap into the emotions of its readers all at the same time.
 
 
 
Five steps to help tell your story
 

#1: Authentic

Storytelling should convey who you are as a company and not only focus on what you do. Improving your brand’s story involves tapping into the power of emotions and connecting with your consumers on a personal level. Be authentic. Make your readers feel something. Feelings cultivate brand affinity.
 
  • Loyal customers are willing to stick with a brand even if presented with meaningful and available alternatives if they feel an emotional connection. Strong emotional connections to retailers result in 32% more store visits and 46% more money spent, according to a recent Gallup poll.
  • There are seven emotions that result in stronger sales through increased customer connections, fear, frustration, hope, excitement, anger, fear of missing out, and desire to be first. If you can tell your story in a way that makes the consumer connect with one of these feelings, a sale may be imminent.
 
 

#2: Take a Stand

Make your storytelling demonstrate that you have a clear understanding of trends and current issues happening in your consumers’ world.
 
  • Quickly State the Problem: Today’s consumers are bombarded with messages; statistics show brands have eight seconds to get a consumer’s attention. If your message doesn’t resonate immediately, you’ve lost. Win your consumers over by demonstrating that you understand their challenges and can provide a solution.
  • Be Timely: What is top of mind today? Review and analyze current headlines and social trends to make connections whenever and wherever possible with your brand. Demonstrating this level of knowledge is a convincing way to engage consumers.
  • Share Your Mission: Define your brand responsibility in society. What is your corporate mission? What issues does your brand stand behind and how do you support those causes? Create communications that share the work you’re doing and publicize it via print, online, and social channels.
  • Take a Stand: Consumers are loyal to brands with a conscience and respond favorably to companies who own their truth.
 

#3: Technology

Technology should be at the heart of all your storytelling efforts. From initial concept to optimizing keywords, technology can amplify your brand message across all channels. However, technology for technology sake is an endless road. To achieve maximum results, your technology investment in brand storytelling should include:
Ease of Use: The ability to host multiple web pages, images, and conversations simultaneously, managed with a platform that lets you publish content and respond to consumer comments quickly and easily, is essential.
Distribution Across Channels: Your brand needs a solution that allows you to publish across any channel. Consumers want to hear from brands where and when they want, so if you aren’t delivering your message on their desired device at the time they want it, your brand isn’t maintaining a consistent user experience.
Measurement Tools: Successful marketers understand the importance of analyzing how and where content is consumed. A key to your success is adjusting content accordingly when measurement tools report that certain communications are underperforming.

 
 

#4: Change

Marketers and content contributors have to master different channels and content as new devices are introduced. Each channel comes with its own set of rules for display experiences and mastering those techniques is essential. Make sure that the quality of your communications doesn’t diminish when published across various channels.
Don’t be afraid to try new forms of content. The written word is just one of many ways brands are creating emotional connections with consumers. Videos and images can also be powerful communication tools that resonate.
 
 
 

#5: Stats

Your brand story is always a work in progress and it’s important to measure the success/reach of each component to discover which topics, types, and channels perform best. Pay attention to all the specifics you can: bounce rates, social metrics, conversions, leads, etc. Are you analyzing things like number of visits, sessions, channel-specific traffic and any other metrics that are important to your particular business?

 

You have a big opportunity to inspire consumers through effective storytelling and complementing this with the right technology is key to success. Implementing these tips will help you build stronger consumer relationships and increase engagement.
 
Source: econtentmag.com

Attracting Audience Attention

Curated by

How to Attract an Audience with Creating Captivating Content

 
 

To be successful, every business has to tell its stories.

These days, such stories are usually told through posting content online in blogs, articles and social media.
  • But just pushing content onto the web is meaningless if it doesn’t interest the audience. In an online world bursting with billions and billions of pages of content — with new content being added every minute.
  • how do you ensure you’re creating compelling content that generates views?
  • Whether it’s defining the details that will capture interest, timing your posts to grab the most views or choosing the right venue for your message, there are strategies that will help your online voice be heard.

1. Cater Content To Customers

As a printing company, our target companies are other businesses that need printed collateral, as well as individuals that have a specific need. Content about our latest printer is not effective. However, design tips or examples for wedding invitations, how-tos, or graphic design tips for other businesses will create value that organically leads to sales. Your content does not have to revolve specifically around your goods or services. Rather, cross-pollenating your content into the desired industries you would like to sell to is an effective way to create value and sales. – Brandon Stapper, Nonstop Signs
 

2. Choose The Best Platform For Each Message

Different channels accomplish different types of engagement. Facebook is great for showing company culture. We find images and behind-the-scenes videos get the most likes and shares. For Twitter, we’re testing tweets that are story driven; you create a thread, and each tweet links to different content that threads up around a point. This is a great way to repurpose multiple pieces of content, and it drives conversation with people commenting on tweets. Instagram is obviously image and video driven. The trick with Instagram is choosing the right hashtag to get the right visibility. If you’re looking for leads, you’ll need users to download an asset that’s useful. We’ve been doing checklists on how to do something accompanied by a case study that proves it works. – Kerry Guard, MKG Marketing
 

3. Write Step-By-Step Guides

I’ve noticed that some of our best content is how-to guides that show users a step-by-step process on how to implement something on their own website. This has helped gear us to becoming more of a resource-based blog where customers can find information on how to make their own sites better. Find out what guides your customers want and write a detailed, step-by-step process that will help them. You can even turn some of your most popular ones into content upgrades in exchange for email addresses. – Jared Atchison, WPForms
 

4. Round Up The Experts

When producing content, a helpful strategy is to include experts with relevant experience on the particular topic you are producing content around. By including these experts and their take on a specific issue, you’re providing them with a platform to share their thoughts and ideas and increasing your chances of them sharing your content with their audience — “seeding” the content with additional readers. If the content is well-received, the results will compound from there. – Brandon Pindulic, OpGen Media
 

5. Answer The Questions You’re Always Asked

Answering tough questions about our industry has been a boon for traffic to our site. Some of our top-performing pieces are articles on how much an app costs to build and on how much money an app can make. Think about the questions clients or potential clients ask you all the time, and then go and create blog posts to answer those questions. – Ryan D Matzner, Fueled
 

6. Take On Trending Topics In Your Industry

I’ve noticed that the content that tends to get the most engagement on my company’s blog and my social media channels is around topics that are disruptive to the industry. For example, in the digital marketing industry, some of my most shared and engaging content dealt with new trends, such as voice search and mobile AMP (accelerated mobile pages). The keys for greater engagement and cultivating thought leadership are to provide helpful context and actionable information that empowers your readers. Don’t be a journalist, be a thought leader instead! – Kristopher Brian Jones, LSEO.com

7. Pitch Solutions, Not Products

No one wants to hear your sales pitch. No one is as excited about your product as you are. What they want to see is someone like them who’s struggling with the same issues. Then they want to see you fix those issues. Case study marketing is the way to go. It’s organic, it’s not just about you and others want to share it. At Enlighten we spend a remarkable amount of time working with clients after the sale to follow up and document the successes. These successes become inspiration for others that see them. Case studies have people asking you for help rather than you asking them for business. – Jeremy Jacobs, Enlighten

8. Integrate Insightful Interviews

Interviews are a great way to generate traffic to your site. Find people in your industry to interview and send them a few questions. You can then post your article in a question-answer format and optimize it for SEO. The trick is to find people that your audience is interested in learning from and asking them questions the audience would like to know. You can create a poll on your site to find out who your audience would like featured on your site. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
 

9. Livestream For Authenticity

Content that receives the most engagement for us is livestreaming on Instagram. For instance, after I released my most recent book, I did a handful of Instagram livestreams with other entrepreneurs, and each segment received more engagement than any other type of content marketing we produced. Livestreaming is the most transparent way to showcase your knowledge and expertise without sounding scripted or rehearsed. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

10. Tap Into Holiday Spirit

Is there an important date or popular holiday coming up? Injecting your brand (in an authentic way) allows you to take advantage of its popularity. Posting content that taps into the interest of a given date almost always guarantees fantastic engagement. Holidays such as Christmas or Valentine’s Day are obviously days you want to take advantage of. You can also time your content to coincide with the release of a popular movie or more niche holidays, such as “National French Fry Day” or “Star Wars Day.” Timing your content to highlight special days allows for predictability. It’s simple, and you can easily track results. It also allows you to tap into niche or international audiences that you may not otherwise reach. – Shu Saito, Fact Retriever
 
 
 
mike stuart, 1stonline.us
 

Good marketing nowadays revolves around inbound marketing. And the good news is

Curated by

Good marketing nowadays revolves around inbound marketing. And the good news is that if you have a blog, you are already on your way toward creating a great inbound marketing strategy.
Iinternet marketing gameplan by http://www.1stonlinetech.com
Checklist for Launching an Inbound Marketing Plan in WordPress
1) Attract: Get to know your ideal target audience and create content that speaks directly to them by solving their biggest pain points and uses a language they can relate to.
2) Convert: Convert your visitors into leads by capturing their contact information
  • Include forms on your site where visitors can submit their information such as their name and email address.Tools: PopUp Pro, LeadIn, SideOffer
  • Include calls-to-action which will encourage visitors to take action such as share your content on social media, sign up for your free offer or download a free resource.Tools: MaxButtons, Inbound Now
  • Create dedicated landing pages where you can expand on your offer and describe all the benefits. Include a form where users submit their information.Tools: Unbounce Landing Pages, WordPress Landing Pages
3) Close: Convert leads into actual customers.
  • Use CRM software to keep track of all the important details and interactions with your contacts.Tools: HubSpot CRM
  • Analyze. Use analytics software such as Google Analytics or Crazy Egg to understand how visitors are interacting with your website and how well your sales team is doing.Tools: Google Analytics, CrazyEgg, KISSMetrics
  • Automate. Use email and marketing automation to further build trust with contacts who aren’t ready to buy yet and to target the right message that relates to the needs and the lifecycle stage of each lead.Tools: MailChimp, Active Campaign, ConvertKit
4) Delight: Continue to engage with your customers by creating new offers and gradually transform them into your loyal fans which will act as your promoters.
  • Use surveys . Ask for feedback to ensure you are giving your customers what they want.Tools: PollDaddy, SurveyMonkey
  • Use smart calls to action and smart content. Make sure your calls to action and your content is geared towards your ideal content based on their interests and their lifecycle stage.
  • Social Monitoring. Keep track of social conversations and reach out with relevant content when your customers ask a question.Tools: Hootsuite, Cyfe, Simply Measured

There are five core ideas behind inbound marketing:
  • Content Creation and Distribution. Creating content that is bound to attract your ideal clients by solving their immediate problems, concerns, and needs then sharing that content far and wide
  • Lifecycle Marketing. Ideally, you want your targeted leads to become your biggest fans who will go on to spread the word about you. However, they don’t just appear out of nowhere. Each lead you attract through inbound marketing will start off as a stranger. The goal is to transform each of those leads into a repeat visitor, who will become your customer and then promoter.
  • Personalization. We established that your content needs to speak to your ideal customer. As time progresses, you will learn more and more about their specific needs and then you can utilize that knowledge to further refine your content.
  • Multi-channel. Inbound marketing is not tied to one specific platform, rather it approaches people where they are, on the platform in which they feel most comfortable interacting with you.
  • Integration. Creating content, sharing the content across different channels and analyzing how well that content is doing – all that integrates together to allow you to put your focus on publishing the right content in the right place at the right time.
By focusing your efforts on inbound marketing, you are no longer a noise they’ve learned to tune out. Instead, your message becomes something they want to hear, something they want to learn more about, and that’s hard to ignore.
How Does it Work?
When it comes to inbound marketing, there are 4 key actions you need to take to capitalize on your marketing strategy.
Attract Even though you might think you want to be found by as many people as possible that is not the right course of action. You want to be found by people who are most likely to become leads and ultimately, your ideal customers.
Some of the most important tools to attract them to your site include:
  • Blogging. If you already have a blog, then you have an excellent start. Blogging is one of the easiest methods to create content that speaks and educates your target audience.
  • SEO. In today’s day and age, each and every one of your customers will begin their search online — either to find out how to solve a particular problem, compare products and services, or to find out more about a particular product. As a website owner, you should focus your efforts on selecting the right keywords and then create content, build links, and optimize pages around those terms.
  • Pages. In correlation to blogging and SEO, the static pages on your website should be optimized for your target audience as well. Rather than simply stating what you offer in dry corporate–speak, you need to speak directly to your target audience by explaining how you can help solve their needs in a language that they can relate to.
  • Social Publishing. Social media should be a natural extension of your blog. This is where they get to see the face behind the brand so do your best to represent your website in the best light. Aside from sharing relevant and valuable content, share content you know your audience would benefit from and don’t forget to engage in the conversation. This means responding to any questions you might get on social media as well as encouraging and being a part of the conversation.
Convert Now that you have their attention, it’s time to convert those visitors into leads. This involves gathering their contact information. Ideally, you will have their full name, address, and email. At the very least, you can get by with just their email address.
When it comes to converting visitors to leads, the best assets include:
  • Forms. These are usually email signup forms where you ask for their email (most often their name, too) in exchange for a download. A good place to feature a signup form is below a blog post or in your sidebar, and to repeat it again in the footer of your website. As with anything, your forms should be easy to fill out and stand out from the rest of your content.
  • Calls-to-Action. Calls-to-Action or CTAs are buttons or links that encourage your visitors to take action with words such as “Download my Checklist to Complete XYZ” or “Sign up for a live workshop.” Sometimes they include a form, and often they lead to a separate form where visitors can submit their information.
  • Landing Pages. Landing pages serve a specific purpose–and that is to convert visitors to leads. This is where you expand on the offer in the call-to-action and where you include another form where the user can submit their information. The information submitted on the landing page can be as simple as a form including a name and an email field, or it can be somewhat longer including more specific information that can be used by your sales team. Landing pages should not include anything else other than your offer and the form so distractions are minimized.
Once your visitors have filled out the form on your site, they become contacts. It’s your responsibility to keep track of those leads in one place by using a custom marketing database. Make sure that every interaction you’ve had with your contacts is documented and that it makes sense for you. In the long run, that information can be used to optimize your future interactions with leads and visitors.
Close The next step in inbound marketing strategy is to convert your contacts into actual customers. This can be achieved through various marketing tools which include:
  • CRM Software. Customer Relationship Management software allows you to keep track of all the important details about all your contacts, companies, and deals in your sales pipeline. Above all, it makes it easy to get in touch with your ideal audience at the right time.
  • Closed-loop Reporting. This allows you to analyze your marketing efforts and see which one of those methods works best to bring in new leads, how well your sales team is doing to convert those leads into customers, and much more. When you integrate this with your CRM software you can have a snapshot of your marketing strategy at a glance at all times.
  • Email. If your visitors aren’t ready to become clients yet, email can be an effective tool to build trust and ease their decision to make a purchase.
  • Marketing Automation. This includes creating a series of automated email messages that relate to the needs and the lifecycle stage of each lead. The content of the messages will be different depending on where and when a visitor actually converted into a lead and that’s one of the biggest benefits of inbound marketing.
Delight At this stage of your inbound marketing plan, your tools should include:
  • Surveys. Asking your current customers for feedback is the best way to ensure you are providing them with what they are looking for instead of randomly guessing and hoping to hit the target.
  • Smart calls-to-action. By smart, I mean calls-to-action that are specific to your ideal customer depending on the lifecycle stage.
  • Smart content. Content that is geared towards your ideal customers’ interests and challenges written in a language that’s familiar to them.
  • Social Monitoring. This is also sometimes called Social Listening, which refers to actively keeping track of social conversations that matter to you, listening to customers’ questions and comments, and then reaching out to them with relevant content.
What Goes Into an Inbound Marketing Plan?
Creating remarkable content Long gone are the days when it was enough to churn out content filled with keywords. The competition is tough and you need to make sure your content stands out from the rest. This comes by creating content that is targeted to your ideal buyer persona – content that inspires, entertains, provokes, and educates.
Using the power of visuals In the age of short attention spans, images really do speak more than words. A number of studies have shown that the average attention span is just 8 seconds so make sure those 8 seconds count. Creating highly engaging visual content that begs to be shared is a good way to get the attention of your target audience. This includes not only photos but infographics, slideshows, videos – anything that will make you stand out from your competition.
Mastering CTA Your Calls-to-Action shouldn’t be ignored. Spend as much time on crafting compelling CTAs as you do on creating your content and your visuals. The last thing you want is to spend hours on an epic blog post and infographic only to have people leave your site because your CTA wasn’t clear, or worse, weak.
Utilizing the power of analytics You won’t know how it works unless you gather and measure data. It’s important to know which pages on your site brought in the most leads, where they clicked, and where they dropped off. Similarly, you want to know how many of your contacts actually turned into customers, at which point on your site they converted, and where they were when they left. You won’t know any of that without analytics software. Google Analytics is great for tracking your website and more sophisticated tools like CrazyEgg can show you exactly where your visitors are clicking.
Implement testing After you have results gathered from analytics, you can start testing different variations of your marketing strategy. This is often referred to as A/B testing and you can set up tests for almost anything, your headlines, your CTAs, content, the color of buttons, and so forth. This is a valuable part of any marketing plan because it lets you tweak until you get that perfect solution that is guaranteed to convert.
Getting the right people on your team As a website owner, you already wear many hats and not all of us are born marketers. Knowing when to bring people on your team to help with your marketing efforts is a smart decision. However, you should be careful to hire those whose skill set not only matches your strategy, but also those whose vision and value align with yours. They should also be ready to continually learn and improve so you can update your marketing plan as your goals grow.
SEO The best way to attract visitors to your site is by optimizing your SEO efforts. By that, I mean researching your keywords and then planning your content around them. However, your SEO efforts should be boosted by using a plugin such as our own SmartCrawl SEO plugin or All In One SEO.
Content Structure Another important factor when it comes to SEO is your content structure. This means setting up a customized permalink structure for your blog as well as creating categories for your content. You can then include categories in your permalinks since URLs are important factors in search rankings. By doing this you inform not only the search engines but your visitors as well how a particular blog post relates to other content on your site.
Image Optimization When it comes to image optimization for inbound marketing you need to make sure that your images are compressed and load fast and that their names include words that can help you get found online. It’s one of the most overlooked aspects of proper inbound marketing and yet the way you handle images matters for several reasons:
  • Image size affects page load time which in turn affects search engine results.
  • Properly named and tagged images can show up in image search results where there is often less competition.
  • Images increase engagement. According to a study done by MarketMeSuite content with images attracted 94% more pageviews than content without images.
  • Enter Media File Renamer. Media File Renamer is a plugin that automatically renames your media filenames depending on their titles. When files are renamed, the references to it such as posts, pages, custom types, and their metadata are also updated.
Social Media Integration Finally, no inbound marketing strategy would be complete without integrating social media. After all, you want your content not only to be found, but also shared on social media so your message can reach even more targeted leads.
  • For the last step, your WordPress website should include social media sharing buttons which make sure your content appears correctly no matter which social network your content gets shared on.
  • For a complete list of the best social media sharing plugins check out our ultimate collection of social media sharing plugins.
source: premium.wpmudev.org/blog/inbound-marketing-checklist/