Outbound + Inbound + SEO = Marketing Success

There are Lots of Online Marketing Tools...

The Key is Making Them Work Together.

Marketing professionals are constantly challenged to keep up with new opportunities for telling their companies' stories, targeting relevant audiences, and forging stronger relationships with customers and prospects.

Over the past few years, a lot of the buzz has centered around comparisons of Inbound vs. Outbound marketing strategies. Too often I hear people say that they are changing from old Outbound strategies to new Inbound strategies. In many cases, they also refer to their SEO program as if it is a separate standalone effort.

In reality, both Inbound and Outbound are key intertwined elements that should work together - and every single online activity should also take your SEO objectives into consideration.

Following is a very brief overview of some key elements to consider and how they can work together to drive your SEO success:

Social Media: Search algorithms now factor in links and activity from social media traffic on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc., so not only are these outlets growing in importance for engaging with target audiences, they're also helping drive SEO as well. Even job postings on your company's LinkedIn page can help drive SEO. It's also becoming clear that creating a Google+ Company Page can deliver some extra credit for your Google search rankings.

Email Marketing: Well-designed and sustained email marketing programs provide an excellent blend of Outbound and Inbound tactics. As your opt-in list grows and you gather data on Opens, Clicks, Forwards, etc., a sustained email marketing program enables you to deepen the engagement with your target audience and to tailor communications to recipients who have shown special interest. Every email blast is also an opportunity to drive up your SEO with embedded links to key content on your web site.

Press & Media Relations: Often underestimated as old-style Outbound strategies, press releases, media coverage, contributed articles, and analyst reviews all play key roles in both building your company's reputation and driving up your SEO quotient. Every external link and third-party pickup of your content not only adds to your credibility, it also boosts your search rankings.

Content, Content, Content: You've probably heard it a hundred times but it's true: "Content is King" when it comes to SEO rankings. You can't fool today's search algorithms by simply embedding a bunch of key words in the metadata for a page unless the actual content reflects the same topics. It's not only bad practice, it can actually penalize your rankings. Besides, if you've got a real story to tell, it should be reflected in every web page you create.

The Bottom Line: Ultimately Inbound, Outbound and SEO activities all feed into a healthy marketing program just as maintaining good diet and exercise practices feed into a healthy body. You can only achieve optimal results by treating it as a way of life; not just by dabbling in it now and then. The good news is that a reasonable level of sustained efforts can yield consistent improvements across the full breadth of your marketing program and your SEO rankings.

Ten Years After...

Today marks ten years since our move from sunny San Diego (where I grew up) to the beautiful, green and rustic woods near Gig Harbor, Washington. I woke up this morning with the smell of Fall in the air and realized what a wonderful life-changing move it was. We still spend lots of time back in Southern California visiting family and friends but Washington has really become our home.

We were in escrow and packing for the move on September 11, 2001 when America's world was turned upside down. In a way, it was good for us to be consumed with the details of moving and settling into our new home in the woods. It immediately became like a cozy cocoon and a sanctuary for us - a safe place in a world that was suddenly unsafe.

Plus, we've got our own backyard bear (Rosie) who comes around every year from April thru October to tear down our bird-feeder and peer through our windows.

And, of course, we have Mt Rainier - at least on clear days.

I've got my office looking out on the woods, with fast Internet and all the techie tools to support my work. We can't see any of our neighbors' houses unless we go stand out in the front yard, and we've gotten snowed in a couple of times in the Winter - - but we're close enough to Tacoma and Seattle to get a little culture whenever we need it.

It's a perfect place to write and to think... and a truly great place to live.

I am wonderfully blessed! Looking forward to the next ten years here.

As someone who manages numerous Twitter accounts, both for my own businesses and for my clients, I found these recent statistics from eMarketer quite interesting. It seems like almost everyone (92%) is aware of Twitter but a much smaller percentage (13%) have used it.
Of course, it's important to keep in mind that the usage number has grown by more than 62% in the past year.
In managing client Twitter accounts, I've found that it has become a very rich source for connecting with "active influencers" such as trade publication editors, industry analysts, etc. as well as with prospects and customers.
With some targeted up front work and a commitment to on-going activity, it's now pretty easy to quickly build a quality following/follower list and to become a recognized participant in specific communities of interest.
While broad-based Twitter usage still has a relatively long way to go, it has already become a very useful tool in the overall bag of business-to-business marketing methods.

Meshstro: Coming to an Inbox Near You!

For the past month or so, I've been part of the Beta testing program for a very exciting new tool called Meshstro. Created by the forward-looking scientists at Xerox PARC, Meshstro has the potential to revolutionize how we use the rich mother lode of emails and associated information that constantly flows through everyone's inbox.

Residing as an Outlook sidebar, Meshstro creates context-driven relationships between emails, conversations, participants, attachments, etc. - - allowing you to quickly slice-and-dice all of the information in virtually any manner that suits your immediate needs. You can even activate links to your social media accounts and Meshstro will automatically take you to LinkedIn or Facebook profiles for the participants in any email conversation.

Using Meshstro, I've discovered that my Inbox doesn't have to be a hodge-podge of chaos to be grappled with and periodically cleared out. Instead it can be a wealth of useful information at my fingertips - whenever and however I need it.

And since Meshstro comes from the the folks at Xerox PARC, with their unmatched history of pioneering user-interface innovations, you can bet that this Beta product is only the beginning...

For more info check out http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?et=1103452729982&s=0&e=001hfGcPNPXb5vwjJMnhGp8SWjHzGuWyfJfHeXDJPfaeknasp8mcoZFX3epoMbLIsKq8ZnWfZ5YgjTodJMAFZebkkrREm1V8Mw8kw11o7h20Qs=

Social Media Marketing - Survey Results

Thanks to everyone who participated in our online Survey on Social Media Usage during April/May. Respondents included both large and small companies as well as industry associations.

Here are some of the top-level findings of interest:

1. Period of time using Social Media: 25% less than 6 months, 15% for 6 to 12 months, 30% more than 1 yr, and 30% don't use social media
2. Types of Social Media used: Twitter (63%), Facebook (68%), LinkedIn (47%)
3. Frequency of Twitter Posts:Every day (46%), Weekly (23%) Monthly or less (31%)
4. Reasons cited as "important" for using Social Media:Building company brand (94%)Finding customers/prospects (84%)Tracking competition/industry trends (60%)Drive product/service innovation (60%)Finding employees (30%)
5. Responsibility for tracking & posting updates:In-house primary task assignment (22%)In-house secondary task (27%)Out-sourced (15%)Ad-hoc or no assigned responsibility (36%)

These findings tend to track with other surveys that I've seen, which confirm a high level of interest in using Social Media for business purposes but a big gap between those companies that have well-defined programs and those that don't.

It has become very clear that social media forums such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others are now a key part of the overall marketing, branding and customer service mix for all companies. It's inevitable that your customers, competitors and partners are going to communicate about your market using these forums - - most already are.

The critical question is what are you going to do about it?

Social Media Marketing for Business (Survey)

The brave new world of Social Media offers lots of opportunity for business marketing. However, it can also seem confusing and sometimes overwhelming.

While some companies are getting excellent measurable results, others are either wasting their time and money or are just sitting on the sidelines because they don't know how to get started.

The bottom line is that information about your market and your company is already being shared by your customers, prospects and competitors every day through Social Media channels.

They are building relationships, strengthening brands and increasing prospects. You need to be out in front of the curve on Social Media or you may just get left behind!

Consider the following metrics for the "big two" Twitter & Facebook:

Twitter:

• 180 Million Unique Visitors per Month


• 300,000 Users Added per Day


• 1,500% Growth Since 2006


• Over 30 Million Tweets Per Day

Facebook:

• Over 400 million Facebook members


• Average user has 130 friends


• Users spend over 500 billion minutes on FB per month


• More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month


• New tools allow FB users to "Like" external sites while browsing - thus driving their Friends to follow them

The Bottom Line:Marketing is no longer just a "one-to-many" advertising proposition or a PR program aimed at "influencing trusted intermediaries" to drive public opinion. It has now also become a dynamic "many-to-many conversation" in real time, where virtually everyone can be a powerful influencer on a brand's reputation.

Fortunately, there are lots to great tools out there, such as Tweetdeck, Hootsuite, Open Graph and many others, which can streamline your ability to leverage these dynamic conversations. But even the best tools are only helpful if you know how to use them.

If you'd like to participate in an anonymous survey on the
Usage of Social Media Marketing For Business, click here.

Happy New Year - Signs of Growth are Spreading

Everywhere that I turn these days, there are new and encouraging signs of growth -- especially in the tech sector.
Here's a sampling from just the past few days:
Wholesale Inventories & Sales See Strong Gains
IC Industry on Cusp of Market Boom
Global Chip Sales Soar
Manufacturing Expands at Fastest Rate Since April 2006

I'm going to keep an eye out for more "green shoots of growth" and post them here and on twitter, as well as sharing them with my client companies. From a practical standpoint, the more we pay attention to positive trends, the faster those trends will accelerate.

In one of my recent eNews letters, I passed along this quote from Colin Powell: "optimism is a force multiplier". I truly believe that and I'm making it my mantra for 2010!