Attract, engage, and delight customers online
Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online is a comprehensive guide to increasing online visibility and engagement. Written by top marketing and startup bloggers, the book contains the latest information about customer behavior and preferred digital experiences. From the latest insights on lead nurturing and visual marketing to advice on producing remarkable content by building tools, readers will gain the information they need to transform their marketing online. With outbound marketing methods becoming less effective, the time to embrace inbound marketing is now. Cold calling, e-mail blasts, and direct mail are turning consumers off to an ever-greater extent, so consumers are increasingly doing research online to choose companies and products that meet their needs. Inbound Marketing recognizes these behavioral changes as opportunities, and explains how marketers can make the most of this shift online. This not only addresses turning strangers into website visitors, but explains how best to convert those visitors to leads, and to nurture those leads to the point of becoming delighted customers.
Gain the insight that can increase marketing value with topics like:
- Inbound marketing – strategy, reputation, and tracking progress
- Visibility – getting found, and why content matters
- Converting customers – turning prospects into leads and leads into customers
- Better decisions – picking people, agencies, and campaigns
The book also contains essential tools and resources that help build an effective marketing strategy, and tips for organizations of all sizes looking to build a reputation. When consumer behaviors change, marketing must change with them. The fully revised and updated edition of Inbound Marketing is a complete guide to attracting, engaging, and delighting customers online.
Table of Contents:
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xv
Introduction xvii
Part I Inbound Marketing 1
Chapter 1 Shopping Has Changed . . . Has Your Marketing? 3
Who Moved My Customers? 6
Inbound in Action: Barack Obama for President 6
To Do 8
Chapter 2 Is Your Website a Marketing Hub? 9
Megaphone versus Hub 9
It’s Not What You Say—It’s What Others Say About You 10
Does Your Website Have a Pulse? 10
Your Mother’s Impressed, But . . . 11
Tracking Your Progress 13
Inbound in Action: 37Signals 14
To Do 15
Chapter 3 Are You Worthy? 17
Creating a Remarkable Strategy 17
Tracking Your Progress 19
Inbound in Action: The Grateful Dead 19
To Do 20
Part II Get Found By Prospects 21
Chapter 4 Create Remarkable Content 23
Building a Content Machine 23
Variety is the Spice of Life 24
You Gotta Give to Get 24
Moving Beyond the Width of Your Wallet 25
Tracking Your Progress 25
Inbound in Action: Wikipedia 26
To Do 27
Chapter 5 Get Found in the Blogosphere 29
Getting Your Blog Started Right 30
Authoring Effective Articles 30
Help Google Help You 32
Making Your Articles Infectious 33
Give Your Articles a Push 34
Starting Conversations with Comments 35
Why Blogs Sometimes Fail 36
The Gift That Keeps on Giving 36
Consuming Content with RSS 37
Subscribe to Relevant Industry Blogs 37
Contribute to the Conversation 38
Tracking Your Progress 39
Inbound in Action: Whole Foods 40
To Do 43
Chapter 6 Get Found in Google 45
Paid versus Free 45
A (Brief) Introduction to How Google Works 48
Picking the Perfect Keywords 50
On-Page SEO: Doing the Easy Stuff First 53
Off-Page SEO: The Power of Inbound Links 58
Black Hat SEO: How to Get Your Site Banned by Google 61
The Dangers of PPC 63
Tracking Your Progress 64
Inbound in Action: LinkedIn “Elite” 65
To Do 66
Chapter 7 Get Found in Social Media 67
Creating an Effective Online Profile 67
Getting Fans on Facebook 69
Creating Connections on LinkedIn 73
Gathering Followers on Twitter 77
Gaining Reach from Google+ 80
Being Discovered with StumbleUpon 82
Getting Found on YouTube 84
Tracking Your Progress 86
Inbound in Action: FreshBooks 87
To Do 89
Chapter 8 Visual Content 91
SlideShare 92
Visual.ly 92
Pinterest 93
Instagram 94
Snapchat 95
Vine 96
Chapter 9 Software and Tools as Content 99
Writing Code Instead of Text 100
Replace Humans with Machines 101
Provide a Next Step 102
Kill Bad Tools Quickly 102
Tools Don’t Market Themselves 103
Inbound in Action: Wealthfront 104
To Do 105
Part III Converting Customers 107
Chapter 10 Convert Visitors into Leads 109
Compelling Calls-to-Action 110
Mistakes to Avoid 113
Optimizing Through Experimentation 113
Tracking Your Progress 113
Inbound in Action: Google 114
To Do 114
Chapter 11 Convert Prospects into Leads 115
Landing Page Best Practices 115
Creating Functional Forms 119
Going Beyond the Form 122
A Word of Caution 122
Tracking Your Progress 123
Inbound in Action: Zappos 123
To Do 124
Chapter 12 Convert Leads to Customers 125
Grading and Scoring Your Leads 125
Nurturing Your Leads 128
Broadening Your Reach 129
Tracking Your Progress 131
Inbound in Action: Kiva 131
To Do 134
Part IV Make Better Decisions 135
Chapter 13 Make Better Marketing Decisions 137
Levels and Definitions 138
Campaign Yield 138
Tracking Your Progress 140
To Do 140
Chapter 14 Picking and Measuring Your People 141
Hire Digital Citizens 142
Hire for Analytical Chops 142
Hire for Their Web Reach 143
Hire Content Creators 145
Developing Existing Marketers 145
Tracking Your Progress 146
Inbound in Action: Jack Welch and GE 148
To Do 149
Chapter 15 Picking and Measuring a PR Agency 151
Picking a PR Agency 152
Tracking Your Progress 153
Inbound in Action: Solis, Weber, Defren & Roetzer 154
To Do 155
Chapter 16 Watching Your Competition 157
Tools to Keep Tabs on Competitors 157
Tracking Your Progress 158
Inbound in Action: TechTarget 159
To Do 161
Chapter 17 On Commitment, Patience, and Learning 163
Tracking Your Progress 164
Inbound in Action: Tom Brady 164
To Do 165
Chapter 18 Why Now? 167
Tools and Resources 171
Inbound.org 171
Advanced Google Search 171
Tracking with Site Alerts 173
Bonus: Entrepreneur’s Guide to Startup Marketing 175
Startup Marketing Checklist 175
18 Simple Tips for Naming a New Company 180
Insider Tips on Buying the Domain Name You Love 184
Get Inbound Certified! 187
Index 189
