Inbound Marketing
Visit with a Local Client, Nathan’s Lynnhaven Pawn Shop
Yesterday our CEO had the pleasure of visiting the shop of a local client. Nathan Segal and Maurice Fuller were gracious enough to show him around their store.
JASE has recently signed with Nathan’s Lynnhaven Pawn Shop as their Digital Agency of Record to provide Internet Marketing evaluation, consultation and interactive services, and to guide and assist with their inbound marketing initiatives.
Here are a few photos from the visit to Nathan’s Lynnhaven Pawn Shop in Virginia Beach.
5 Ways Blogging Will Support Your Marketing Campaign
Think of your company’s blog as the eyeglass to a socialgraphic world populated by millions. We all know that blogging, inbound marketing in general, can be a daunting set of tasks. For starters, where do we start? Who do we target? How do we target our sponges? What tools that are available to us will be most effective and efficient for our shrinking budgets?
During the old days of advertising, these questions were easier to answer. Today, with the onslaught of Googlers and Bingers, the new world of power online marketing is not always in the marketing department’s toolbelt.
JASE can help you when you get to that point, but here are five items outlining how blogging will support your marketing campaigns and sales goals. And YES, blogging is where you should start.
- Search Engine Optimization. Our team preaches two main concepts of inbound marketing - content, content, content and inbound links. The top way to improve your SEO rankings is to increase the number of inbound links to your web entities (website and blog). In order to increase the number of inbound links, you must create quality content for your website and, more easily and frequently, your blog so others will want to link back to you.
- Lead Generation. In order to fill the sales funnel with active tasks for your sales team, you must have a steady source. For JASE, our blog leads the way for inbound traffic that generates leads that fill our sales funnel. The majority of our inbound traffic leads go straight to our RFP form, one of our very informative and educational marketing webinars, and sign up form for our This Week in Digital Media email newsletter.
- Executing Brand Strategies. JASE centers itself around 4 major talent areas - Inbound Marketing, Brand Management, Creative, and eBusiness Solutions. The values we live by, products we produce, and the services we provide are communicated almost daily on this blog. If you want to understand the JASE brand, simply read through our Digital Media Blog. We should be able to say that about your company.
- Public Relations. The old days of publishing a press release to your database of fax numbers is gone. You hear us? Gone. Your blog can be, and should be, your shouting box to the world. Think socialgraphics. Share new products, uncovered statistics, breaking news, and educational advice through your blog posts. Then follow them up with an email to your database of contacts that include relative news organizations.
- Social Media Optimization. Think of an octopus with tentacles. At the end of each of your tentacles is a social community of your sponges - Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, etc. Leading back into the main brain center of your octopus is your blog. And all trails lead to your brain center. We know you are already active in social media. Just make sure your social media interaction leads those potential clients back to your brain center where you can 100% control the conversations and more successfully guide those generated leads into your sales funnel.
photo source: ccaviness
New Webinar is Available :: Wide, Wide World of Video Blogging … for Business
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Video blogging, sometimes shortened to vlogging, is a form of blogging for which the medium is video, and is a form of Internet television. In this session we talk about why you should video blog, how you should video blog, several techniques for video blogging, and what benefits you can generate for your business by video blogging.
In the class, we will talk about many topics, but a few of them are:
- What is Video Blogging?
- Should you Video Blog?
- Video Shooting Tips
- Do you really have time for this?
- The Storage Facilities
- Streaming Video
- Video Blogging & Lead Generation
- When to Hire A Professional
- Are you sure Video Blogging is for you?
Are you the reason your CEO does not see the value of Social Media?
This article was taken from our CEO’s personal blog. Keith Parnell is a regular blogger at keithparnell.com and a participant here in our digital media world.
There are many challenges to implementing a social media marketing campaign into an organization’s culture.
Challenge #1 -
The first is that you, as the marketer or stakeholder in the organization, must understand that social media marketing cannot stand alone as a marketing initiative. JASE has written on this quite a bit. Your social media marketing initiatives must support a larger inbound marketing campaign that supports the sales goals of the organization or your efforts will all be for naught.
Challenge #2 -
Probably the largest challenge to implementing a social media marketing plan into an organization’s culture is buy-in from the CEO. Comments from the top like, “We are not a social media company,” or “We don’t have time for you to play on Facebook,” are common when executives do not understand the vast numbers of people occupying the social community space and the power of those social players with the influence they have on decision making within their own organizations.
So, here’s a possible solution to your problem -
Think like a marketer, a new media marketer.
Break down your target audience into groups of sponges that want and need what you’re selling. Online, offline, doesn’t matter.
Understand your demographic studies.
Then understand your socialgraphic studies.
Now you have enough information to determine where those sponges are living. Are they living on your billboards? Are they living in the blogosphere? Are they living on your radio spot? Are they living in Facebook? Are they living on your newspaper ads? Are they searching Google?
The bottom line to this solution is to understand people. Get rid of the terms “traditional advertising” and “social media”. That’s right, I said get rid of the term “social media”. Because in the end, when results of dollars spent are determined, it doesn’t matter where you reached your sponges. What matters is that you reached your sponges and they like what you have to say.
New Webinar is Available :: WordPress As A Business Tool, How To Get Started
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This session is for you if you have not yet begun blogging and don’t know where to start, or if you’re stalled near the starting line, or if you just want to know more about blogging with WordPress.
In the class, we will talk about many topics, but a few of them are:
- Why use WordPress as your blogging platform?
- Where to host your WordPress blog.
- How to setup your WordPress blog.
- How to choose, install, and activate a WordPress theme.
- How to choose, install, and activate a WordPress plugin.
- How to configure your WordPress blog.
- Creating content:
- Blog posts.
- Blog pages.
- Adding images.
- Adding video.
- What are categories?
- What are tags?
- How and why to setup comment approval.
- Fighting spam with Akismet.
New Webinar is Available :: Creative Social Media Marketing Strategies
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Building and maintaining your organization’s brand and reputation is a crucial aspect of the success you achieve online. Social Media Marketing has proven to be an efficient basket of strategies to help with accurate and solid brand management.
Of the many social media marketing strategies we cover in this inbound marketing webinar are:
- Know your audience:
- Demographics.
- Socialgraphics.
- Know where your audience lives on the Internet:
- Blogs.
- LinkedIn.
- Facebook.
- Twitter.
- YouTube.
- Have a social media marketing strategy for each socialgraphic human group - to - social media community.
- Understand inbound marketing.
- Understand search engine optimization.
- Understand the art of lead generation and follow-on conversion.
- Understand reputation management.
- Build a brand strategy and an executional online plan.
- Build a strategy around ‘blogging for business’.
- Build a strategy around photo, audio (podcasts), and video (videocasts) marketing.
- Build a strategy to push the correct type of content from your blog to the proper social media community.
- Narrow down your strategies to concentrate on the social media communities that will reap the best return on your investment.
5 Ways to Promote Your Event through Inbound Marketing
Over the past few years, JASE has sponsored, helped promote, and actively participated in many offline events. Digital Media Seminar is the latest example of this. For each of the events, we have used and tweaked the inbound marketing techniques we use to promote the events.
Based on our experiences, below are a few guidelines that could help you in promoting your event.
- Create a website for your event. If the event is part of a series, such as Digital Media Seminar, feature each event separately within the event series’ website. Use solid SEO strategies describing each event uniquely.
- Use a hashtag for your event. Digital Media Seminar uses #DMS2010. Coffee with the CEO uses #CWtC. These hashtages used throughout your Twitter network are easily searchable and provide a nice brand tag for your event(s).
- Talk about your event everywhere. When you’re on Facebook, talk about your event. When you’re on Twitter, talk about your event. When you’re on FriendFeed, talk about your event. When you’re on YouTube, talk about your event. And again, be sure to use solid SEO strategies linking back to each event.
- Create a following around your event. Create a buzz on the event, its speakers, and its content. Create a group for your event on LinkedIn. Create a Facebook Fan Page for your event. Create a blog for your event. Create a space for your event to be talked about. And again, be sure to use solid SEO strategies linking back to each event.
- Advertise your event on Eventbrite and Yahoo! Upcoming. Aside from the SEO advantages of these powerful websites, they have a nice toolset of scheduling, registration, and communication features.
We hope these tips help you with advertising your next event. We are available to assist where needed with your inbound marketing strategies.
image source: xtra_xtra
Poised for the Future of Advertising - Digital Media!
According to Google President of Global Sales, Nikesh Arora, online advertising will increase by 50% in the next 5 years.
People are shifting their spending dollars more and more to the online world – whether it be direct marketing, or advertising, or branding … where the eyeballs are, where the customers are.
I personally expect in the next five to eight years 30pc to 50pc of advertising will be digital.
That is a bold claim, but in the UK it is already over 20%. In the US it is over 10%.
Of course, Google is going to say this in an effort to influence the spending of businesses’ advertising budgets towards their services. But we agree. JASE has already witnessed more and more clients and small business owners shifting advertising and marketing budgets to the online world.
It makes sense. As more consumers continue to move their once-yellow-pages-search to Google, Bing, and Yahoo!, and continue to join the wealth of social communities setup for their niche interests, logical thinking says that smart advertisers will be settled into those camps ahead of the masses.
Digital advertising is the future. For that matter, digital advertising is here today. And successful digital advertising and inbound marketing techniques are practiced daily with the JASE toolset.
Let’s get your business started today in digital advertising and inbound marketing.
image credit: momentimedia
New eBook On The Way :: All Traffic Points Inward
Our CEO, Keith Parnell, is close to finalizing his latest eBook. We have proofed a few sections of the book and feel you will enjoy reading and learning from the material.
Topics such as inbound marketing, lead generation, outbound marketing, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and monitoring your brand on the Internet are covered in the PDF-format eBook.
Keep an eye on the All Traffic Points Inward website for further details on a publishing date and download details.
Let us know if you have any questions.
New Webinar is Available :: Inbound Marketing Techniques for Lead Generation
View & Download the FREE Webinar
Inbound marketing focuses on creating powerful content that will lead potential customers to your brand, product or service line through online methods like searching, referrals, and links from other web entities such as blogs, video and social communities.
For this reason, inbound marketing can generate quality leads because it focuses on the audience that is already interested in your brand, company, and product or searching for your services.
A couple of years ago our company, JASE Digital Media, decided that we were going to commit wholeheartedly to inbound marketing. The marketing and advertising strategies we had previously used for our company just were not working as effectively as we hoped.
Our process began as a test project around our blog material and extended out to a few of the social communities we were actively involved in. We began creating a massive amount of content then instigated, created and encouraged as many links back to this content as possible.
Guess what? It worked. And it still works. Every day.
In this session we will talk about these points, and a few more. And we will discuss together how you and your business can benefit directly from a well-planned and well-executed Inbound Marketing Plan.
3 Quick Tips for Small Businesses & Inbound Marketing Strategies
You own a coffee shop or you are a Realtor. Time is very sensitive and extra time is very scarce.
Do inventory or work on your website?
Meet with a client or write blog articles?
Allowing time to market your small business is tough. But it must be done to succeed in today’s competitive business environment. So you must be smart with your time.
Here are 3 quick tips to help small business owners be smart with their inbound marketing strategies:
- Consistent Branding - Why do you need a brand model, you ask? Your brand strategy helps establish you as an expert in your field, increases the reach of your marketing, and elevates the effectiveness of your advertising. We talk about a solid brand model here and a more expansive branding strategy process here.
- Quality Content - It does you no good to just be good. If no one knows about you, you may as well be invisible. The easiest and least expensive way to get the word out about your business is to blog. Text blog, video blog, photo blog - it doesn’t matter your preference. Just get your message out into the search engines.
- Network, Network, Network - As your time allows, let’s expand into social media marketing and begin tweeting, reaching into the Foursquare audience, or maybe Facebook. Begin quality conversations and establish trusted relationships with potential customers.
Talk to our team when you’re ready to get rolling with your inbound marketing initiatives. We have many options that will fit the needs of your small business on a small business budget.
photo credit: businesspundit.com
Social Media Marketing is Not For You - Maybe - Maybe Not
We ran across this blog article recently from Jay Ehret. Intelligently, Jay questions whether social media marketing should be implemented across the board for businesses.
Here is a special quote that we pulled from his article: “The cheerleading comes from those who make their money selling social media advice. I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just saying they don’t really have the data to back up their stuff. I’m just saying they can’t be the authority you use to decide. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use social media marketing. It can be effective. Just not for everyone and not all the time.”
So true! Let’s work together to figure out what inbound marketing initiatives will work for you and where your smart dollars should be spent.
Below is the complete article. See Jay’s blog for more comments and conversation.
What you should understand before you commit to a social media marketing program.
Social media evangelists have been selling the idea that social media marketing is the must-do marketing strategy. But is social media marketing better, or more effective, than other forms of marketing, including traditional media? The answer is: I don’t know, and I think that neither does anyone else. Because there’s no widely, authoritative available data to prove it. Social media marketing’s popularity is built on opinion, hype, and anecdotal evidence that it’s better, but there’s no real proof.
My Aha! moment came this past weekend while I was in Mari Smith’s “Facebook & Twitter Success” session at the BlogWorld and New Media Expo. Mari Smith, has been called the Pied Piper of Facebook, and I’ve learn a lot about Facebook from her blog, Why Facebook?. During the Q & A portion of Mari’s session, I asked her, (paraphrasing) “is there evidence that Facebook and social media marketing is more effective than traditional media?” After a minute or so of rambling, she stopped, then told me to talk to her about it later. She didn’t answer my question, and it occurred to me that she couldn’t answer my question, because she didn’t really know.
(Note: I reached out to Mari via a Twitter direct message and asked to meet with her to discuss the topic and she has not yet responded)
Where’s The Research?
I’ve been searching for verifiable data that social media marketing is better than other forms of marketing, but as of yet, have found no numbers to support the hype of social media marketing. There are numbers on social media usage, but no numbers on effectiveness. Yes, a lot of people are using social media, as many as 95 million Americans and 300 million people worldwide are on Facebook, but does that make it a viable marketing channel? After all, 284 million Americans watch television.
(Note: I called Forrester Research this morning and asked for some data. They said they will send me some information in 24-36 hours.)
(10/20 update: Forrester has responded with no specific data and informed me that I must be a paying customer before they can provide me with any information.)
Here’s the data that’s available, and what you usually see quoted in support of social media marketing:
- Members
- Followers
- Views
- Hits
There are also case studies and success stories of incredible success. But these examples are anecdotal evidence and not proof that social media is the most effective way to market your business. Case studies can be cited for the effectiveness of traditional media too. In fact, case studies can be found to support any claim. Where are the metrics to prove the overall effectiveness of social media marketing vs. other forms of marketing? Without that data, all the social media hype is just that: hype.
The Relationships Argument
As I shared these thoughts with other marketers on the final night of BlogWorld, they pushed back: “But social media allows you to have relationships with customers and potential customers.” That’s true. So what about the relationships? Does that justify starting a social media marketing program? No it doesn’t.
Customers don’t need to have a relationship with every business at which they will some day spend money. People just don’t have time, nor the desire, to have a relationship with every business where they may someday purchase something. Do I really need to have a relationship with my plumber, my dry cleaner, my grocery store, my realtor (who I use once every seven years), or every restaurant I frequent?
Is Social Media Really Free?
Then there’s the issue of cost. Traditional media marketing costs money, and sometimes a lot of it. Social media marketing is alluring, and perceived to be better, because it’s free. Well, social media is free like a puppy is free.
The biggest decision about social media marketing is time, not dollar cost. What every small business owner needs to evaluate is, will the time you invest in social media be worth the return you can get from a social media program? I’m talking about ROI, in this case return on time invested. Social media evangelists are notorious for saying that you cannot measure the ROI of social media programs, often using arguments like “What’s the ROI of your logo?”
But you better think about ROI, because social media takes a lot of time, five to ten hours per week, and sometimes more. Time is your most valuable resource. How much is ten hours of your time worth? You can buy a billboard advertisement and it can work for you for 30 days without you having to do a thing with it. Cost vs. time investments need to be weighed.
Should You Do Social Media Marketing?
You may get the impression that I don’t think you should do social media marketing. But I’m not a social media marketing detractor. In fact, I’m a full participant. I have this blog, a Facebook Page, a Twitter account, a podcast, and a YouTube Channel. It’s just that there is this hype, this belief, that everyone should be doing social media marketing. It’s a belief that flows from an unfounded assumption that social media marketing is better than other forms of marketing. We just don’t know if that’s true.
The cheerleading comes from those who make their money selling social media advice. I’m not saying they’re wrong, I’m just saying they don’t really have the data to back up their stuff. I’m just saying they can’t be the authority you use to decide. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use social media marketing. It can be effective. Just not for everyone and not all the time.
You have to decide on an individual basis. Is social media marketing right for you and what should you do if it is? Do you have the time to devote to a marketing tactic that really has not been yet been proven to be more effective that other forms of marketing?
photo credit: dirjournal.com
5 Ways to Help Your Business Blog be Successful
We have written several times on the benefits of blogging and how the increased website page numbers and amount of quality content can boost your rankings with the major search engines. So now that you’ve bought into our inbound marketing strategies, let’s talk about ways you can help your blog be successful.
- Schedule time to work on your blog. The quality content within your articles is not going to magically appear. Just as you would any other aspect of your business that has a clear rate of return, allocate the time to make it work for you.
- Build your network. This is where a solid social media marketing campaign can support your direct business initiatives. Build that Foursquare network. Build that Twitter network. Build that Facebook (business) network. Build that LinkedIn network. Then share your blog’s content with those networks of trusted friends.
- Do your keyword research. Don’t leave out this very important task. Your blog will not be successful without a purpose and focus. Keyword research and analysis performed against the habits of your potential customers is a must-do before starting to write content.
- Use your call-to-action widgets wisely. Point your blog visitors to more information, contact collection webforms, free eBook downloads, t-shirt giveaways, etc. Don’t let your visitors get away without knowing who they are.
- And finally, use your other ongoing initiatives to promote your blog. Include excerpts of your blog content in your company newsletters. Add tidbits of your blog material to your tweets and LinkedIn statuses. Be creative to help spread the word about your blog.
photo credit: smbmarketingguide.com
Men vs Women & Is Social Media Right for Your Business?
This Week in Digital Media :: volume 14, issue 21
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Making Social Media a True Leads Channel for Your Business
You’ve heard the local social media “guru” talking about setting up your Facebook page. And you’ve heard the neighbor’s kid talk about kickin’ it on Twitter and Foursquare. You understand there are millions of people in social communities these days but one question still lingers in the back of your mind - What can social media do for my business? full article >>>
Do Men Rule Social Networking? Has the Tide Changed?
According to Google Ad Planner, men outnumber women in most of the major social communities. Let’s look at some numbers to see if your strategies may need to be re-evaluated. full article >>>
Women Rule Social Networking on Mobile Devices
Would it surprise you if current statistics show that women outnumber men for tweeting from their mobile devices? Let’s look at the numbers to see how this may affect your ad spending. full article >>>
Upcoming Digital Media Seminar
Don’t miss out on this 90 minute seminar that will focus on inbound marketing and creating powerful content that will lead potential customers to you.
Inbound marketing, sometimes called online marketing, is a concept that JASE has built a foundation upon that hinges on “content, content and more content” and how to create healthy inbound links to your website or blog.
In this seminar our CEO will talk about JASE’s experiences with inbound marketing and how it can work for you. You won’t want to miss this session. registration details >>>
Tips on Hiring an Agency for Social Media Marketing
First, you must ask yourself if hiring an agency is right for your organization. If you just want to get out and play in social media like the local “guru”, then an agency is probably overkill for your purposes. But if you want to make your social media initiatives a part of your successful inbound marketing strategy that feeds leads to your sales funnel, then an agency like JASE is perfect for you.
Here are a few tips for making sure your social media team is the perfect fit to run your social media marketing campaigns.
- Anyone that calls themselves social media experts can be ruled out immediately. Social media, just like any other human-directed medium, is fluid in its development and desires. Your agency must understand where and when to reevaluate current initiatives to keep with the changing currents.
- If your social media guy stopped by your desk to setup your Facebook account and left you with a cool looking Facebook Fan Page, he’s probably run his course. Keyword research and a strategy that leads your Facebook fans back to your website and blog for more content and call-to-action webforms is where you want to be. Not left hanging with a cool looking Fan Page.
- Facebook and Twitter buzzwords are all you hear them talk about which means that’s probably all they know. Yes, these two communities are hot. Yes, there are a lot of people living in these two communities. But has your target audience research been done? Do you know that Facebook and Twitter are really where you want to find your potential new customers?
- Do they blog? Is their blog active? Do they have an inbound marketing strategy behind their blog that has proven to be successful? If they don’t have time to blog and don’t understand that a blog is the most important aspect of online marketing, then they certainly couldn’t teach the successful methods of inbound marketing.
- If their idea of a social media strategy is to figure out how to boost the number of your friends or fans or followers, let them go do that while we work together to build your solid money-making strategy.
These points are a bit harsh. But only a self-proclaimed social media “guru” will find them offensive. Let’s work together to build your efficient online marketing strategy that fills your sales funnel with quality leads.
Photo credit: me_on_flickr.
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