Over 81% of your prospects will search the Internet for what you offer.
Will they find you or your competitors first?
What is Inbound marketing?
When we talk with most marketers today about how they generate leads and fill the top of their sales funnel, many will mention trade shows, seminar series, email blasts to purchased lists, internal cold calling, outsourced telemarketing, and advertising. We call these methods "outbound marketing" where a marketer pushes his or her message out far and wide hoping that it resonates with that needle in the haystack.
Recently, outbound marketing techniques are becoming less effective for two reasons. First, your average human today is being inundated with over 2,000 outbound marketing interruptions per day and is finding more creative ways to block them out, including caller ID, spam filtering, TiVo, and Sirius satellite radio. Second, the cost of learning about something new or shopping for something new using the internet (search engines, blogs, and social media) is now much less expensive than attending a seminar at the Marriott or flying to a trade show in Las Vegas.
More likely than not, you found our website through a search engine such as Google, Bing or Yahoo. Perhaps you were searching for a custom web site designer, SEO specialist or maybe you were specifically looking for an online marketing firm that provides Inbound Marketing Services.
Well, let's just say you didn't end up here by chance. We don't just sit around hoping people will find us. Instead, we have mastered the art and science of Inbound Marketing and search engine optimization in order to bring smart prospects (like you!) to our website.
Plain and simple, Inbound (Web) Marketing is the process of bringing more qualified prospects to your website through providing valuable information that smart people want.
The 3 Most Important Reasons Your Business NEEDS Inbound Marketing
- To enable people who are actively searching for what you do, to find you.
- To remain competitive in today's online environment.
- To attract more prospects, at a better ROI, than nearly any other form of marketing.
Improve Your Success Using an Inbound Marketing Agency
If inbound marketing is an important part of your 2012 marketing strategy, you have two options. You can handle it entirely through your internal staff and add it to their "to-do" list, or you can supplement your staff's effectivness with an inbound marketing agency.
Since inbound marketing is a very big part of what we do for our clients, we offer an objective view on how a company leader can ensure the best chance for success when working with an inbound marketing agency.
Here are the keys to success:
Long Term Collaboration
The first aspect of a successful relationship with your inbound marketing agency is to plan for a long term, collaborative relationship. A good way to approach this is to “go on a first date ” by engaging the agency on a small project (such as a website audit or a strategic inbound marketing plan).
A project like this can range from 3 weeks to 3 months. This honeymoon period allows you to gain an understanding of your inbound marketing agency’s talents, processes, deliverables and overall work ethic. Then, if all goes well, you will be ready to commit to a one year working relationship. Inbound marketing takes time, a consistent effort and teamwork. Results should be measured monthly quarterly.
360 Degree View of Your Marketing Plans
Your inbound marketing agency should know all elements of your marketing plans in advance. We call this a 360 degree view. A good agency will need to know your direct mail plans, your email marketing plans, your tradeshow plans, your advertising plans, your public appearances at trade events, etc. And, they will especially need to know your PR plans, particularly planned press releases.
Inbound marketing is tightly integrated (or should be) into all aspects of your marketing plan. Integrating your inbound marketing agency with a 360 degree view of your marketing strategy facilitates successful, integrated marketing among all facets of your marketing activities to ensure the best possible results for yur company.
Well Defined Scope
Anytime a company leader retains the services of a marketing agency, there should be a well-defined scope of services agreed to by both parties.
Each party has a responsibility in this arrangement. The agency needs to ensure they can deliver what the cleint needs at the price and timing needed. The client’s responsibility is to be realistic about the scope of thier needs and not ask their agency to take on more than the defined scope without agreeing to incremental fees. One of the least desirable conversations for any agency to initiate is the “your request is out of scope” conversation. A well documented scope on the front end that is understood by the client’s management and the staff is important for a healthy and successful relationship with your inbound marketing agency.
"Win-Win-Win" is a Must
Obviously, the primary purpose of an inbound marketing agency is to deliver measurable results for its client. The client needs to win otherwise there was no value. But, there are two other parties that need to win also. One of those is the executive that made the decision to contract the services of the inbound marketing agency. He or she needs to demonstrate to team that they made a good decision in their selection.
At DBCdigital, we consider that we have two clients – the executive's company and the executive that chose to retain our services. The third winner should be the agency. Like our clients, we’re running a business and we have financial goals like any other business. We also need "reference-able" clients in order to win future business. When this win-win-win attitude is in place from the start, great things happen for all three parties in the relationship.
Selecting an inbound marketing agency can be a daunting task for a marketing executive. The decision you make can make you look great or hurt your reputation.
Keep these guidelines in mind during your decision process and you’ll have a much greater chance of having a successful relationship with your inbound marketing agency.
Lead Generation Tools
What does it take to turn your website into a lead-generating machine?
The right lead generation tools for the job
Hopefully you have browsed our site and now know it takes great content and a well-designed custom website to attract interested prospects to your website and entice them to stay.
So, now that you have a prospect at your website, what do you do?
This is a question most companies have a hard time answering. The best websites in the world have the best lead generation tools in the world. Companies that really "get" online marketing "get" the fact that you've got to build lead generation into your initial web site architecture.
Successful lead generation is accomplished by thinking about how your customers buy, what appeals to them, what their pain points are, and what will impress and intrigue them enough to convert from a browser into an interested lead.
Think about it. You have prospective customers visiting your site every day. Do you know who they are? (Only if they tell you). And what are you doing to encourage them to raise their hands? Hmmmm...
Lead Generation Tools Turn Prospects into Leads
The right lead-generation tools make prospects WANT to raise their hands and tell you who they are. So let's look at some examples of the types of lead generation tools we use for our clients (we know they work!). For all of these tools, we provide complete writing, editing, design, and production:
- Downloadable PDF Brochures
- PowerPoint Presentations
- Flash Demo Presentations
- Webinars
- E-Books & White Papers
- Case Studies
- Online Tours
- Guides
- Galleries and Portfolios
- Videos
- Self Help Kits
- Widgets
- Landing Pages
- Email & Blog Invitations
And much more! Let us create a custom lead generation tool for your company.
Online Marketing Packages
Online Marketing Campaigns via Social Media Marketing
Social Media Marketing & Publishing Plans:
We all know we should Blog more, write and publish more helpful content for our customers, release insightful articles and press releases—but we just don’t have time, and in many cases the expertise. Well we can help. We put together executive level writers and creative marketing minds to produce content that will raise awareness, generate leads and build your online reputation and search rank.
Online Marketing
with DBC’s SocialPro Plus Campaign:
- Content Strategy Brief: Includes a discovery conference and a written brief that identifies our goals, audience key needs for education and information, and targeted keywords phrases.
- Combo of 24 Professional Articles/Posts/Emails: A variation of 12 shorter articles/posts, and 12 longer (500 word plus range) - This program assures you are getting the word out and nurturing your customers with helpful information.
- 4 Press Releases with priority paid distribution through PRWeb, (Social distribution) (Includes interview and research)
- 2 Downloadable Content Pieces or Webinar (25 slides or less)
- Quarterly Reporting With Online Review (1 hour each)
Details of Services:
BLOG POSTS, E-MAILS & SHORT ARTICLES:
We will write and publish blog posts, e-mail campaigns or short articles on topics or ideas that align with your industry and content strategy. Blog posts & e-mails are divided evenly between short commentaries and longer article posts. We will pitch topic, write and optimize the content, and provide you with copy ready for use. Additional articles, emails or posts can be added to the package rates for a reduced fee. Comment monitoring is also available.
ONLINE PRESS RELEASES
Our press releases are written with social media best practices to enable your prospects to discover and share your news on the web. With your input, we will develop the topic, write the release, optimize for search engines, and distribute your blog through our partner PRWeb to industry targets, regional targets, syndicated feeds, Google News, Yahoo News, eMediaWire, and more. Releases include keyword anchor text, an embedded image, social bookmarking features, and other SEO-related functionality. Reporting on page reads, impressions, search engine traffic, and search terms included. (Advanced reporting and embedded video available for additional charge.)
DOWNLOADABLE CONTENT PIECES/WEBINARS
Designed to demonstrate your knowledge and generate leads from web visitors, downloadable content and online webinars are an essential component of any social marketing plan. Choose from a mini eBook, guides, whitepaper, case study, webinar, PowerPoint presentation, or agreed-upon item of similar scope. Includes research, content writing, and search engine optimization (Design available for additional charge.) Client-provided copy points are required for highly technical or complex topics. General guidelines are as follows: PowerPoint includes max 15 slides, case study is up to 3 pages, whitepaper is 3-4 pages, and mini eBook or guide is 5-6 pages. Original photography and highly involved custom graphics or charts are billed separately.
Contact Us for Pricing
Stay in front of your customers when they are looking for YOU! Let's get Social.