A four part series featuring Jenna Engel

After reading Part 1 and Part 2 and Part 3, you’re pretty much an expert on Inbound Marketing, or at the very least you now know somebody that is…

…Jenna Engel, who’s here to discuss everyone’s favorite subject – R.O.I. – and to offer you a ‘blueprint’ to success:

Inbound Marketing Gets Results

Here’s how inbound methods to transform the outbound marketing you’re currently doing to accomplish some of your major marketing goals:

1. Increase your ROI from your B2B marketing spend. In fact, our research has shown that inbound can be up to 4x more cost-effective than outbound methods.
2. Engage prospective clients, leads, by providing solutions they’re already searching for.
3. Measure your marketing’s effectiveness – and gauge where you should be spending more.

A change is coming for today’s businesses, and it’s starting with the marketing you’re doing. According to a 2015 study by Corporate Executive Board, prospects make approximately 60% of their buying decision prior to talking to a sales representative from any company. People are researching your services well before speaking to you directly, which means a powerful shift from outbound marketing (traditional media) to inbound marketing (organic, education-based methods) is already happening.

Do You Need a Marketing & Sales Strategy? Request a consultation with Trending Up Marketing &: Sales about a digital marketing and sales strategy today and download your FREE blueprint

A great big thank you to Jenna Engel for imparting us with her wisdom.

Let’s look back at what’s we’ve learned about Inbound Marketing: You’re customers are online, and that’s where you need to be too. In order to meet them in your online space, so you an engage with them (instead of shout at them), remember the Inbound Marketing Method: Attract, Convert, Nurture, Delight and Measure. Create a strategy by researching your target audience, clarifying your goals, analyzing your current marketing plan as well as your game plan to improve it, design content designed to attract, convert, and close, and educate your sales team on your new strategy. It’s not simple, but it will be worth it… and we can help.

If you have any questions, or if you’re ready to start transforming your marketing plan, Contact us today!

A four part series featuring Jenna Engel

From reading Part 1 and Part 2 you know a little more about Inbound Marketing, and hopefully agree that transforming the outbound marketing you’re currently doing will better accomplish some of your major marketing goals. We’re sure if you’ve come this far, that your next question is… where do I even start?

Once again, here’s Featured Industry Expert Jenna Engel, from Trending Up Sales & Marketing, answering that exact question:

Where to Start?

Every inbound marketing plan needs to start with a measurable, data-based strategy. The strategy for creating a lead-generating machine with your business will include some very specific elements:

• Research and interviews with your ideal target audience
• Goals that you’re aiming for using this plan
• An analysis of your current marketing (and game plan to improve it)
• Content titles based in search engine research that are designed to attract, convert, and close your ideal customers
• A plan to nurture those prospects who aren’t yet ready to purchase
• Education for your sales team on how to use the new strategy elements in their closing process

This sales and marketing strategy is a winning business plan to use your digital presence as an extra, 24/7 seller where your prospects are looking for information: online.

Knowing where to start is essential. Tune in next time to find out where you can download yourself a sweet ‘blueprint’ packed with information about Marketing and Sales by Jena Engel. And remember, if you don’t have the time or the know-how to pull this ‘Inbound Marketing thing’ off, rest assured… together, we can help you get a jumpstart on transforming your marketing. Contact us today!

A four part series featuring Jenna Engel

As you remember in Part 1, we told you a little bit about Inbound vs. Outbound marketing, and you learned (if you didn’t already realize it) that your customers… are online. Now, in Part 2, we’d like to tell you a little about the Inbound Marketing method, as we continue to encourage you to put down the megaphone and pull audiences in. Into your space, where you are the expert and where you can engage in conversations with potential customers and talk to them instead of at them.

Once again, here’s Featured Industry Expert Jenna Engel, from Trending Up Sales & Marketing:

How Does Inbound Work?

Inbound marketing guides ideal customers through their decision-making journey until they’re ready to make a purchase.

Using a strategic marketing plan, inbound marketing sets your digital presence up to meet today’s potential buyers where they are looking for solutions. The method is simple:

• Attract visitors to your site
• Convert the ideal visitors to leads
• Nurture these leads until they close as customers
• Delighting customers converts them to promoters
• Measuring the results allows you to optimize the process

Throughout the inbound marketing process, measuring and analyzing the results ensures that you’re using proven methods that help you meet your business goals. Marketers who check their metrics 3x+ times a week are over 20% more likely to achieve positive ROI. (Hubspot, State of Inbound, 2016)

Attract potential buyers, even passive researchers simply looking to educate themselves, using inbound methods.

Now that you know the Inbound Marketing Method (and just to be clear, that last bullet point doesn’t belong anywhere near the dating process), join us next time and learn how to start. Or, just contact us today to find out how we can start putting Inbound Marketing to work for you!

A four part series featuring Jenna Engel

If your business is still using only traditional (aka “old”) methods of advertising – direct mailers, print ads, TV/radio commercials, you’ve probably noticed that over the last few years, their effectiveness (along with any new customers) has declined. We all know that the yellow pages has all but disappeared, and its been said that up to 44% of direct mail is never opened. Even methods of online advertising has been forced to change, because of the increasing effectiveness of ad blockers and ‘spam’ filters. Shouting from the rooftops in hopes of reaching your target market resulted only in your message getting lost in the crowd, most of whom are holding their hands tightly over their ears in an attempt to escape the constant assault of advertising in their lives.

So, if outbound marketing alone isn’t effective, how do you get your message to your target audience? We’ll answer this question and more, in this four part series, Inbound Marketing 101: How Inbound Marketing Works, Where to Start, and Getting Results.

We’ve asked our first-ever Featured Industry Expert Jenna Engel, from Trending Up Sales & Marketing, for her insight. She will help us help you understand how, and why, transforming the outbound marketing you’re currently doing will accomplish some of your major marketing goals. According to Jenna:

Many contractor marketing strategies include traditional advertising techniques, cold calling, and other outdated methods that make measuring success very difficult. As a result, contractor marketing can be a costly endeavor.

Your potential customers are online.

Nearly 75% of Americans go online on a daily basis. (PewResearchCenter, 2015) Let that sink in. 3 out of 4 people use the internet every single day. These people online include people who are searching for a business exactly like yours: they want to hire a contractor. Are they finding you?

Let’s put it this way: what happens if the prospective clients came right to you and gave you their information, via your website? What if they told you about a problem they were having, and you provided a solution with educational content? What if, through this new communication and relationship, the prospective client now trusted you with their business as a result? That, my friends, is inbound marketing.

Join us next time to find out more about the Inbound Marketing Method (hint: it’s a lot like the dating process), or contact us to find out how we can start putting it to work for you!

Your business has been built on hard work, craftsmanship, attention to detail, and YOU. In an effort to stand out in the marketplace, owners often try to conform to a preset notion of what they should be. For your brand to work, it is important to embrace your “YOU.” Your current clients work with you because they know you and how you operate. Your brand should be able to impress upon your future clients how you are different, not how you are the same.

Once you have found your style, stick with it. The best branding has consistent color, logo, lettering, and attitude. You begin to become familiar to your target audience and grow potential clients through recognition and reputation. Those come through repetition. If you attempt to change up your image regularly, you get the reverse desired effect. You will be lost in the crowd rather than stand out from it.

YOU DON’T OWN YOUR BRAND. Though you work to build and cultivate a brand, you do not own it. It belongs to your clients and the public. It lives in their hearts and minds and is the culmination of their experiences with your company. The best branding takes on a life of its own. Your consist brand will result in your clients’ loyalty.

Do you struggle with branding? We have an in house design staff that can help. Contact us today to begin a conversation.

Referrals are great, but how does a client find us without one? More often than not, it will be through a web search. The best way to be found is to think about how your potential client is looking.

Many businesses make the mistake of trying to cast the widest net possible in the hopes of catching the right client. In so doing, you may fail to resonate with your core client.

Take some time to think about your core customer.  What are the questions or key words would that client would plug into a search engine? What is the problem that needs to be solved? The more thorough you are in your understanding of your client’s needs and how that person will search on the web, the more effective you will be in directing them to your site.

Do you need help determining how to market or even figuring out who that core client is? Contact us to see how we can help you create an effective online marketing plan.