BroadVision Marketing Blog

Have you ever found an infographic that yelled your name? I have, often, but this has to be my new favorite -- HOW TO CREATE content ideas for a FOR A NEW CLIENT (check out the different colors, etc. for the title). As I looked down it, I realized that while it is addressed to inbound marketering agencies' creative departments, it is also on point for anyone blogging for his or her own business. So it applies to you, you, and, yes, you.

What is the demand generation? Today’s buyers have changed, as stated in the article Demand Generation: “Today’s buyer acquires their information online, through various sources, on a timeframe that makes sense to them. Because of this, marketers must focus on understanding the needs of the buyer and facilitating their buying process, rather than pushing marketing messages at them.”

It's been a year since I first wrote this article. I have been an inbound marketing coach for some time. People ask me what I do and then look confused when I tell them. It occurs to me that just because I know what an inbound marketing coach is I sometimes need to be reminded that the majority of those around me are still trying to learn about this kind of job and help. Therefore, to answer so many people's questions all at once, I have brought this article out of mothballs. I would like to add that in the 21st century any business of any size needs to be doing inbound marketing. If that business is not out there competing digitally, it is not going to survive these difficult economic times.--Jaco

I have been wondering exactly how to count the many points of touch or contact a potential client has before becoming a client since Ann Mullen wrote about the how a client becomes a client and I wrote about the activity of the leads. What sort of analytics are there to get some idea? I found one writer who said, “Sales specialists believe that it takes around 7 points of touch for a company to convert a lead into a customer.”

Earlier this year we published a post on Landing Pages Make Me an Offer 40+ where we discussed the importance of landing pages, and why it is a good idea to have lots of them.

Guest Blogger: Ann Mullen  You can go look at sales funnels for yourself on Google Images any time you want, but I thought I would show you a few different ones. Why am I so interested in sales funnels besides the fact that they are colorful? I like them because they are so different. Whatever you want to study you can create as a funnel.  It starts at the top with a general topic and winds up very specific. I have also discovered in my quest that not all sales funnels are even shaped like a funnel. So for your edification and my enjoyment, here are some sales funnels.

Do you fully understand the steps which your leads go through and how they react to each step? This process is actually known as Activity of the Lead and refers to things such as landing pages, squeeze pages, opening your emails and more. While you know the portions of your lead funnel how do you know if your leads are going through each step or if they opt out at a certain point each time? Knowing this information is vital to your business and will allow you to make changes and tweak your funnel.

As an online marketer one of your goals is to get leads into your business. This can be achieved in various ways including building a list which is one of the easiest methods of lead generation. Once you have started building a list you should consider segmenting your list. Your leads have subscribed because you are giving away a general ebook, audio or video on a particular topic. Your next goal is to break down this list into more specialized segments.

I am a backlink addict. I look at how many there are on different blogs and worry that we are not keeping up. I have reams of reports about who goes to which website or which landing page or which blog articles. I seek places to connect to that is willing to connect to us. I have commented on competition’s sites and on the sites of the great gurus. In the old days before Pandas and Penguins I bought backlinks and talked about doing that in some old articles on this site. They embarrass me now, but I don’t want to take them down because they clearly show what you should not do.

Have you ever sat down to a meeting where you had a very good idea of the topic only to hear what sounded like a foreign language? As I looked at definition for “marketing campaign” I felt that way on occasion. As you will see when going through these definitions there are 16 items that aid in the definition of a marketing campaign.