Series Brief:

By now I am almost certain that you have heard about the new social media platform sweeping the nation and scooping up users from Instagram, podcasts, TikTok, and more. 

I'm not going to sugar coat this. A lot has been said about millennials and a lot has been said by Generation Z. Many stereotypes deem them lazy, uninspired, and entitled. 

At Leading Results, we will get asked why we nearly always use the term 'key phrase' instead of keyword.

At one point in time, keywords were good enough to get the rankings on Google you were looking for, assuming you were willing to pay someone enough to create the right number and types of links.

Social media advertising isn’t new, but many are unsure of the most efficient way to use it. That’s because there’s a constant conversation about best practices surrounding social media advertising. Truthfully, it’s different for each company, depending on their target audience.

Most often, landing pages are standalone web pages on your website designed specifically for a campaign or offer – a webinar, ebook, newsletter subscription, etc. Landing pages have one goal: to increase conversion rates and bring in new customers.

Good inbound marketing equals creating great content. But … that’s not always easy. Luckily, we have more than the typewriters of old to help us out: computers and an endless array of online writing tools.

Consider these tools to up your content creation game.

One of the stats you most likely pay attention to is your website traffic. You started the year with a goal – are you on your way to achieving it?

Inbound marketing is using educational, valuable content to draw people who need your products/services to you. Smart content is a “weapon” in your inbound marketing arsenal and is more powerful and flexible than other types of content. Why? Because it changes/adapts based on the viewer. Smart content allows you to improve your visitor targeting and create an individualized experience.

It’s almost summer – are you feeling the heat? I’m not just talking about the summer heat. I’m referring to the heat put on marketing teams as employees gear up for summer vacation and work piles up for those of you left in the office.  Don’t let leads go unnurtured or customers unattended. What can you do to make sure your marketing doesn’t fall through the cracks as employees leave for vacation?

Imagine you’re in the restaurant business. Whether it’s been years or you’re new to the game, you know you’re the best at what you do. Your food is the best. Your service is the best. Your presentation is the best. Your atmosphere is the best. And your customers love you.

So why isn’t business booming?

There are many reasons companies of all sizes and in all industries invest time and money participating in trade shows. From improving brand perception to generating leads to offering insight into what your prospects want/need, questions they have about industry topics, and hesitations they may feel about your brand, trade shows are a valuable resource.

Read this blog if:

• You’ve spent a lot of money on Google Ads with little success

• You’re constantly promoting yourself on social media but get little engagement

• You think advertising is expensive and offers low ROI

We’ve been talking a lot about marketing with Facebook and programmatic ads, but we haven’t discussed what makes a successful ad design. You can gather the right audience, build appealing assets, and create landing pages, but if the ad itself doesn’t draw the audience’s attention, it won’t be a successful campaign.

Here are 3 must-haves for a successful social or mobile advertisement design.

An infographic is one of the best ways to communicate content in a visually pleasing, educational manner. When done correctly, infographics grab the audience’s attention and make them want to learn about the content within. They often make otherwise boring content interesting and inviting to the public.

Understatement of the decade: SEO has changed a lot in the past few years.

Customer testimonials are a necessary part of your marketing strategy, but getting them can be daunting. A good place to start is choosing a dialogue. 

On today’s web, is a website ever a once-and-done event?  

No.

In traditional web design, you start with a website (see chart below) based on the assumption that “it will work” to achieve whatever smart goals you've set. After a year and a half to two years, you see that performance is dwindling and you embark on a 3-month redesign. You gain impact and the site works for another one and a half to two years before performance falls flat again, and you have to repeat the process.

The chart below shows that gains occur abruptly and fall flat quickly.

Have others been preaching to you about adopting new marketing and advertising channels? Everyone says they know which is best for you and to focus all your attention on one channel. Such “advice” can be overwhelming and, frankly, just plain wrong – putting all your eggs in one basket is a big risk. So instead of putting all your efforts into one channel, hoping for a positive ROI, spread your efforts out to reap the benefit of multiple channels.

Here are 3 reasons to explore a multi-channel advertising approach.

The rise in voice search capabilities, chatbots, and changes in search behavior have left marketers and sales reps questioning how useful a traditional form and landing page are anymore. Here are a few things to consider about chatbots and conversational marketing: research says that in 2020, 85% of all customer interactions will be handled through chatbots, without a human, and 56% of people would rather message customer service reps than call them. That means your company can’t afford to skip chat features on your website. With that being true, is there still value in creating a landing page – or have conversational tools killed them?

No matter what you’re designing, if it has type on it, you must consider the typography. Typography is described as ‘the art of creating and arranging type on a page.’ You might think, “Oh, that sounds easy” – but it’s harder than it sounds. There are rules to follow and things to avoid.

Here are 4 helpful typography tips for a well-organized design.

People flock to the internet … why? To meet a need. Whether it’s to answer a question, buy a product or service, or solve a problem (and often it’s all three), you need to be the one they find (assuming you have their answer, the product they’re looking for, or the solution to their problem).

Customer testimonials add credibility to your brand. The heart of a good testimonial is a story, and nothing captures emotion like a story. Stories are scientifically proven to pull us in and make us feel something, and 89% of B2B marketers consider testimonials a powerful marketing tool. B2B decision-makers also trust them – 62% say peer recommendations are a strong purchasing trigger. 

Although obtaining new clients is important, retaining current clients is even more so – research has proven that it costs approximately five times more to find a new client than it does to keep a current one.

Whether you own a company or are just a designer working on freelance projects, building the client relationship is one of the most important things to do for a successful business.

You’ve probably noticed how many marketing automation tools are available, and you’re probably wondering how to choose the one that’s best for you.

When contemplating marketing automation platforms, consider options that allow you to implement an inbound marketing strategy and campaigns for your business. Necessary tools include:

• Landing pages and lead capture forms
• Lead nurturing
• Email marketing
• Social media
• SEO tools
• Personalization
• CRM

The world of advertising on screens has changed immensely – and will only continue to change. Streaming services like Netflix, Hulu, and SlingTV, for example, allow consumers to choose new ways to watch TV; cable or satellite subscriptions are no longer necessary. According to eMarketer, 24.9 million people cut the cord from cable television in 2017, and in 2018, 33 million people moved to streaming TV. And these numbers will continue to rise.

In the graphic design world, having a portfolio of your work is a must – no if, ands, or buts about it. A portfolio is a representation of your creative mind coming together in various works. Whether you are applying for a new job or trying to acquire a new client, they simply will not even consider you as an employee if you don't have a portfolio. Therefore, you need to know what it takes to build a successful portfolio to earn a new job or new clients.

Just as important as the trade show is what happens after the show. If you’ve attended a trade show, you probably gave your information to 50+ vendors in exchange for some free goodies and information, and the relationship ended there. No follow-up whether you wanted it or not; you never heard from the company again.

We explained the benefits of creating a business podcast; this blog tackles what goes into creating a podcast.

Hosting a podcast isn’t easy – in addition to equipment (another blog for another time), it requires practice, smart planning, knowledge about your intended audience, and a strong sense of self.

After you’ve chosen your podcast’s topic and direction (which could also be its own blog), consider these six things as you plan each episode.

We've all been in there – we're working hard on a design project and all of the sudden the ideas and inspiration vanish from our minds. This tragic time during the design process is known as designer’s block. Designer’s block is something that everyone tries to avoid, but at some point, it's going to happen to you. Learning how to cope with this tragedy is of utmost importance for getting back on track to the finish line.

Podcasts aren’t easy – you need more than a $15 microphone and the audio recording app on your phone. Creating good podcasts and utilizing them to benefit your business requires planning, learning some new technology, social media and content creation skills, and a strong knowledge of your buyer personas.

Podcasting is hard work, but it’s worth it.

Here are 6 reasons to start a business podcast.

If you’re still spending part of your marketing budget on print ads in newspapers, magazines, or yellow page listings, you’re wasting your time and money – there are much more effective ways to market your business. Technology makes things both easier and cheaper, and if you don’t take advantage, you could be throwing money away on ineffective marketing.

Here are 5 reasons you’re wasting your money by placing ads in newspapers or magazines.

It’s early February 2019. You’re crushing those New Year’s resolutions, right?

• Get more exercise: check
• Lose weight: making progress (see above)
• Spend less money: yeah, there’s a little extra money in the bank
• Learn a new skill: Rosetta Stone, conquering the world one language at a time!
• Get organized: Marie Kondo, you’ve changed my life!

In the game of getting leads and closing sales, you need a solid strategy. These seven strategies involve both the responsiveness of people and the immediacy of the web and will help propel your efforts. 

To create stronger customer relationships, you must understand how to get the most from your marketing data, and, thanks to CRM (customer relationship management) and social media analytics tools, gathering customer data has never been easier. The data is great for project management, customer research, closing sales, and general marketing activities – so how do business leaders, salespeople, and marketers use their CRM data to understand how to foster better customer relationships and extend the lifetime value of their customers?

Let’s look at why some companies fail to provide better customer experiences and what successful use of CRM data and human interactions to foster positive experiences looks like.

Brand awareness is how consumers view the quality of your goods and services and your company culture – and it’s critical to your success. Brand awareness tries to align how you want others to perceive your business and how people actually do perceive your business. This is more important than ever with social media because news and opinions – good and bad – spread like wildfire.

When people visit your website, they want to know:

• How big you are
• How long you’ve been in business
• Where you’re located
• The faces behind the products/services
• What makes you special
• Your core values
• Why they should buy from you and not your competitor

A logo is a direct representation of a company and its branding. It is also frequently the first impression a customer gets of a company. Creating a perfect logo is essential to a company’s success, but designing a single image that represents what the company and its brand are all about can be a daunting task.

I’ve worked with many complex, expensive products and services during my marketing career, and I’m not alone in saying it’s challenging to make prospects understand the value your pricey product offers. Here are five things I’ve learned about marketing and selling an expensive product.

Scientific research suggests that when hiring employees, managers look for the baseline of technical skills first – but really want people they can bond with and feel good around. It makes sense: spending a day at the office is more enjoyable when you can befriend, or at least relate to, your employees, and it’s certainly easier to get buy-in for your ideas when you surround yourself with people who think like you.

If you read my previous article, you might be trembling with fear and wondering how you can fix this mess and make your website not suck.

Psst … psst … hey you … yes, YOU! Do you want to put an ad in front of your competitors’ customers while they’re still at your competitors’ place? We can do that! Then we can keep advertising to them after they leave – it’s called geofenced programmatic advertising. And it has a lot of uses beyond just advertising to the guy who went to a competitor’s restaurant. You can use it to recruit employees, capture people at a trade show or conference, or focus on everyone who’s stayed at a specific hotel.

You looked at your website and didn't like what you saw (otherwise you wouldn’t be here.) Below you'll find 8 issues that can negatively affect your website traffic. 

The rise of ad blockers, data breaches, and clickbait make it easy to think online advertising is coming close to running its course. With all the ways there are to consume online content, there are an equal number of ways to ignore ads. Adapting and innovating your advertising is important to avoid getting tuned out, because I’m here to tell you – advertising isn’t dead yet.

The approaching new year brings the question: “What new trends will push marketing forward next year?” The real answer is that no one knows – but paying attention to 2018’s trends allows us to make educated predictions.

These are my predictions for the top 3 marketing trends to expect in 2019.

One of the biggest challenges marketers and business owners face isn’t that they don’t have enough data to make good decisions – it’s that they have TOO MUCH data. The problem with having too much data is that the answers you need get buried under vanity metrics.

Matt Starnes, the host of Leading Results’s Marketing Monster Mashup podcast, sat down for a far-reaching conversation about analog vs. digital marketing with Jason Huddle, President at CabCo Media Group. 

I recently attended the BCUG/NAVUG Summit 2018 show in Phoenix with a client who was a Gold Level Sponsor. It was the first trade show of this size either of us had attended as sponsors, and I learned a lot – including how to stand out in a room of 100 other companies and how to network with partners. Among my learning, I made a ‘stop, improve, keep’ list of items to help us improve our marketing strategy and make the most of our sponsorship in upcoming years.

Have you ever been in a meeting with a prospect or had a conversation with someone interested in what your business does and they asked to see an example of your work? Most of you are nodding your heads, and your answer was probably, “Of course! I’ll send you an example later today.” Imagine if, instead, you could say, “Yes, of course, take a look at this.” Now you can continue the conversation and keep their interest instead of them revisiting the conversation hours or days later when they’ve forgotten why it was important.

I was recently asked to participate in a panel discussion about marketing trends and challenges for technology consulting firms. I thought the questions and answers were worth sharing.

I am continually surprised by business owners who haven’t stayed current with marketing trends, techniques, or technology … yet expect to pay pennies to hire a team of people who have invested in continual learning in the craft. (I know – I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am).

Which of these phrases best describes marketing in your tech company?

1. We suffer from random acts of marketing
2. We’re really good at drive-by demand generation
3. We think of marketing as arts & crafts

If you know your website needs work, you’re in the right place to learn how to make improvements on a low budget. Following is a 3-step process to improve your website. (Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a better website won’t be, either – but this will give you a place to start.)

If you’re anything like our clients when you hear the word ‘video,’ you have a voice in your head that also says, “Demo videos!!!” I’ve written about when to use different types of videos before, and I mentioned that demo videos are only a small part of the ‘convert’ phase in the inbound methodology.

But today we’re going to talk about making your average, run-of-the-mill demo video a fantastic tool for both converting AND attracting.

It’s no secret that the internet is all about attention-grabbing content, and what better way to grab someone’s attention than with visuals. For many businesses, this means finding someone to do graphic design for them. Some businesses hire an agency for help, others could hire a freelancer or a full-time designer, and some will try to have someone already in-house do their design work. Before choosing a route, it’s important to understand what it actually means to be a graphic designer.

Here are 5 common myths about being a graphic designer.

Matt Starnes, the host of Leading Results’s Marketing Monster Mashup podcast, sat down for an educational and insightful conversation with Betsy Boone, founder and president of #KennedyStrong.

For the past five months, I’ve gone to bed almost every Sunday with a great fear. This fear hasn’t been death or snakes or realizing I have a health issue; every Sunday I fear facing my coworker Courtney on Monday.

Think about someone who’s positively influenced you. This person could be a boss, coworker, family member, friend, or even a celebrity. Now think about five actions or characteristics of that person. What did you come up with? It’s possible you wrote that they’re patient, a good teacher, communicate well, set expectations, or that they’re simply a competent person with a logical mind.

Running your business is hard. There are never enough resources to do everything you want to do. Technology never seems to deliver on its promises and is harder to work with than expected. Time seems to accelerate, never pausing for you to catch up on your to-do list.

The vendors did a terrible job. (As a whole.)

Although it was a difficult decision, my favorite INBOUND 2018 session was (drum roll, please): Conquering Consistent Content: Tools & Tactics to Become a Prolific Blogger, Podcaster, & Broadcaster. Long title, but what it boils down to is content stacking, an approach that makes planning and creating content more manageable. Dr. Colin Gray, CEO and founder of The Podcast Host and Alitu podcast production, ran the session, discussing his three-prong content stack approach.

For all the HubSpot fans, September means one thing: INBOUND! Our team travels from Charlotte, NC to Boston, MA for a week each year to learn about the current marketing trends and expand our ability to help our clients. We go to breakout sessions related to our role; as the graphic designer, I went to a lot of sessions about tech, brand, and design.

You’re not alone in thinking that Facebook is a consumer-only channel. It’s not true, though – Facebook is effective for B2B, too. At Leading Results, we’ve been testing B2B Facebook ads for our clients for over a year, and we’ve learned a lot about what makes a company’s ads successful – and why many B2B brands struggle to make Facebook ads work for them.

Here are the top 4 reasons B2B brands struggle to run successful Facebook ad campaigns, and what they can do to make them work.

Leading Results spent the week of September 3^rd in Boston at the INBOUND conference that’s hosted annually by HubSpot. With 23,000 other marketers (more than last year!), we attended breakouts, keynotes, a few parties, and ate from many food trucks (how else do you feed that many people in a short time?). And while you’ll get more detailed posts from our team in the upcoming weeks, we’ve gathered the most significant highlights from each attendee for you to read here. 

Good email marketing is sending emails to people who want to receive them – but even that doesn’t mean people will read the emails and click through to your offer.

Use these tips to improve your emails' open rates, clickthrough rates, and lead generation potential.

You might be familiar with the rising trend of chatbots. In the past year, technology has witnessed significant waves of changes affecting how people search, buy, and communicate. One of the most prevalent technology trends is the rise of chatbots and investments across different industries to utilize more artificial intelligence in their marketing. (In fact, Gartner forecasts that by 2020, over 85% of customer interactions will be handled without a human.)

I’ve had the privilege of talking with hundreds of CEOs, presidents, and founders of small and mid-sized businesses over the years. Here’s the one thing I’ve noticed that’s consistent among all the successful ones: they want the big picture, the vision – and quickly. If you want the details, you’ll ask questions. Details are what you have a team for.

This question comes up frequently when we discuss the optimal length of blogs – and really, all the content we produce – to lead our client’s prospects through the buyer’s journey.

So here we are again… talking about video – but this time you’re here because I’ve lured you in with the promise of content you actually NEED! I’ve mentioned in other blogs why you need video, how to create video content that works, and even how to implement it as a strategy.

Today I want to talk about what happens after you’re finished with a video’s production.

When designers learn how to design marketing materials, we learn how to design for B2C (business-to-consumer) marketing – not B2B (business-to-business) marketing. We’re all consumers in some aspect, we’re bombarded with consumer marketing, and it’s what we’re used to seeing – but you’re wrong if you think they’re the same.

Here are 3 significant differences when designing marketing content for B2B vs B2C.

We shouldn’t need to tell you your business needs video as part of your content strategy, but here are a few statistics if you need further convincing.

Forrester Research estimates that business-to-business (B2B) eCommerce transactions will reach $1.2 trillion by 2021; Frost & Sullivan estimated $6.6 trillion. We don’t know why the large discrepancy there, but we know eCommerce is here to stay.

Pay attention to these B2B eCommerce trends:

If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself – especially when it’s your business on the line. But sometimes it’s better to accept that you can’t do it all. Marketing is typically the first place most business owners realize they struggle, which is why many businesses have made hiring a marketing agency their marketing strategy.

If you’re one of those smart business owners, congratulations!

So you're going to INBOUND 2018? For those of you who don't know what INBOUND is:

HubSpot (an inbound marketing and sales platform that helps companies attract visitors, convert leads, and close customers) hosts the INBOUND conference. "INBOUND is a community of people who are passionate about marketing, selling, and delighting customers in an inbound way. Our annual event and year-round media platform inspire and educate hundreds of thousands of people so they—and their businesses—can grow better."

According to an article by the American Marketing Association (AMA) in 2017, individuals are smacked with 10,000 marketing messages per day – but probably don’t remember even 1%, because as savvy consumers, we’re experts at tuning out marketing and advertising, unless it strikes us personally. From advertisers who scream in their ads, “Buy me because I’m awesome” to marketers who say “content, content, content – oh, and read this, too.” Mainstream and viral forms of media seem to communicate with arrogance, as if we, as media consumers, should wait with bated breath.

Let’s say you have a sales team of between two and ten people. I’m going to make an educated guess that one of three things is happening:

I’m the luckiest guy on the planet. I mean it! I love podcasting and I get to speak with the most interesting business owners, authors, speakers, and coaches on Marketing Monster Mashup, the official podcast of Leading Results. 

As a board member of the American Marketing Association (AMA) Cincinnati chapter, I’ve been to a lot of networking events – good ones and bad ones. I’ve also organized and hosted my own networking events, including the ever-popular Speed Networking. It saves time and money to know which networking formats work best for me and my professional goals.

You’ve probably heard that 90% of what you say is nonverbal. Of that 90%, about 50% is body language, 40% tone of voice. The same thing goes for content you publish on your website. The difference is that in writing, you can control the words and the tone – but body language is unaccounted for.

You’re only as good as your team – an adage that couldn’t be truer in the workplace, especially as it relates to marketing programming or projects that utilize multiple team members. If your team isn’t on the same page, paragraph, line, word, and character, problems regarding goals can lead to a program breakdown and compromise your organizational integrity.

My 10-year-old daughter (M) and her 11-year-old best friend (K) want to start a business. (They’re both Shark Tank fans). They decided the best idea was a party-planning business.

Whether it’s new blogs, ebooks, or infographics, a time will come when you feel like you’ve exhausted a topic. (You haven’t, but that’s a different conversation.) Instead of racking your brain for a new topic, look at your old content to see if it could use updating.

There’s an erroneous belief floating around that SEO is dead. (A Google search for “SEO is dead” offers 31,700,000 results.)

If you were excited about that, we’re sorry to burst your bubble – SEO is NOT dead, it’s just evolving.

What kind of lead do you have and how do you know when marketing should pass the lead to sales for follow-up?

Lead generation in B2B marketing is critical. If you have a marketing team or work with a marketing agency, hopefully leads are coming in – but what happens when the quantity of leads surpasses the quality of leads? What it boils down to is knowing if your lead is an MQL (marketing qualified lead) or an SQL (sales qualified lead).

Join host Matt Starnes for an insightful conversation with Cassie Brown, Chief Experience Officer and owner of TCG Events.

To many, out-of-office replies are annoying, sometimes because it’s another email to clutter up your inbox and sometimes because you really needed to contact that person and they’re unavailable. But auto-reply emails hold meaningful information that can aid your sales and marketing process – and build personal rapport.

Your coworker emails your team a link to an inspiring blog. Your boss sends a link to a page with best practices. You watch a video that offers step-by-step instructions for a task you can never remember how to do.

(I’m speaking to business owners and leaders here.)

And I’m guessing you probably aren’t sure.

Do you feel like your SEO strategy team is constantly trying to keep your content and organic search strategy up to Google’s standards? It’s almost like trying to impress a date – we need the right lines (keywords), or Google won’t ask us out again. Like a good dinner date, Google’s algorithms are looking for conversational language, not one-word answers and dead-end questions.

You have a vision for where you see your business or product growing, but you don’t always know how to get it there. As marketers and designers, it’s our job to turn those plans into a reality. It sounds pretty easy, but often the path to success isn’t sunshine and rainbows – there are bumps and hurdles to avoid; fortunately, there are several simple ways to do so.

The definition of a shortcut is something that gets you somewhere faster – cutting a route to make it shorter. However, shortcuts can have a negative connotation (as in, the building’s structure is weak because the builder took shortcuts.)

Question: Is it worth your time to regularly post to your business’s Facebook page?

Short answer: Probably not.

Better answer: Yes, but you need to invest in your ad budget.

Join Marketing Monster Mashup’s host, Matt Starnes, for an insightful conversation about data visualization and artificial intelligence (AI) with Sterling Scott of Stratifyd.

Your CRM is stocked with prospects, or maybe you have a hearty email list. Great, but can you separate/segment based on prospects? No? Oh, we have work to do – here’s why.

An FAQ (frequently asked questions) page is the page on your site where you answer, well … frequently asked questions. Businesses use them so they don’t waste time answering the same questions repeatedly.

I often get asked, “What’s the magic bullet?” or “What’s something I can do that no one else is doing?” Sometimes that question is related to marketing. Sometimes sales. Sometimes customer satisfaction (or, as I prefer, customer delight).

Technology changes the way we live in and learn about the world, and it’s affecting the marketing world. As marketers, we have to continuously learn the best ways to get our message to the right people.

The sales funnel is the buying process customers “fall” through when making a purchase.

Things like your industry, business model, product, pricing, and audience mean your funnel won’t look like every other funnel – B2C customers, for example, often spend less time in the middle of the funnel, whereas B2B customers need more nurturing in that stage.

In the book The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael Gerber, Gerber writes about the importance of building your business like a franchise, structuring everything.

Hosting webinars to communicate your organization’s offerings, troubleshoot common challenges, or share valuable content is a popular way to have a non-pressured conversation with prospects or solidify customer relationships.

Welcome to A/B testing 101! We’re going to walk through A/B testing by defining it and then discussing the three steps of how to A/B test effectively: prep work, what to do during testing, and post-A/B testing. Then we’ll discuss the benefits – one of which is how A/B testing can CYA.

Leveraging LinkedIn can be a powerful way to drive sales leads; in fact, LinkedIn claims that 80% of B2B leads come from using LinkedIn. (Read other powerful statistics on marketing with LinkedIn here.) To understand the value of LinkedIn as a lead generation tool, it helps to understand its users and the information it offers. There’s a wealth of knowledge available to support B2B salespeople and marketers on LinkedIn – you can use content to gather insights on potential job candidates, qualify leads, gather insights on companies, offer insights into your own organization’s capabilities, position yourself and your company as thoughts leaders, and enable targeted advertising to qualified prospects.

Facebook Live launched in April 2016 and is a useful tool for furthering your brand. Live streaming has opened the door to much larger audiences and can add to your sales funnel. Many businesses don’t use it because they (well, their employees) are too self-conscience about being live in front of a camera.

I promise once you hear these stats you’ll change your mind.

Einstein (supposedly) said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

Believe it or not, this applies even to your marketing efforts. If you’re in charge of the marketing for your company and aren’t getting the results you’re expecting, it’s time to try something different. As the go-to marketing person, it’s your job to push the boundaries in everything you do; if you work with another marketing firm, it’s your job to be open to new suggestions. Otherwise, you’ll fall into the proverbial revolving door (not somewhere you want to be).

After being acquired by Microsoft in 2016, LinkedIn has gone through monumental changes, including the robust integration of Microsoft’s suite of services, including Office 365, an expanded publishing platform, and streamlined desktop and mobile apps. Critics had a lot to say, noting that Microsoft’s acquisition was the inevitable demise of LinkedIn. Over the past several months, however, media and marketing outlets have been noting that LinkedIn has truly improved, including AdWeek in this article.

I've been working on a sales playbook for Leading Results, and it made me reflect on the progress we've made in documenting our processes and growing our business.

Join Marketing Monster Mashup’s host, Matt Starnes, and Laura Lorenz for a fun and insightful conversation with Steve Kinzler of Element Funding.

Steve Kinzler, NMLS# 664766, has more than 30 successful years in the banking, mortgage, and financial services industry where he’s held several senior leadership roles.

Prospecting by email is challenging – and often unrewarding. After all, 112.4 billion (yeah, with a B) business emails are exchanged every day. That’s 122 emails per person per day. And that’s an average; you can bet the president of my company receives far more emails than this lowly editor – so you won’t be surprised about how carefully you need to craft your emails.

How can we shorten the sales cycle?

I’ve been hearing some version of that question for the 30 years I’ve been in technology sales and marketing.

And the short answer is …

You’ll never guess what I’m here to talk to you about today – that’s right, SOCIAL MEDIA. Social media continues to be a major key to your business’s success, and it’s important to understand how to get leads with it. A popular theme right now is that Twitter is on a downslope as far as success and popularity go, but it’s not a lost cause.

Here are 3 ways to maximize your opportunity for leads using Twitter.

If your website, blog, premium content offers, marketing programs, etc. are on point, you’re doing a fantastic job of establishing expertise in your industry and drawing prospects to you. But do you find that prospects come and go without ever becoming customers?

In 2007, Google received 438 billion searches – all year. In 2017, Google received 100 billion searches – every month. If you look at your search history, you’ll probably find searches like “sushi near me” or “closest post office.” Google My Business (GMB) is arguably the most relevant and effective digital touchpoint to elevate a lead’s first impressions of your company, improve your local SEO, and gather more reviews. You can read more about GMB basics in my earlier blog, 6 Things You Should Know About Google My Business. But now I’m going to focus on making GMB work for companies who aren’t local businesses with brick-and-mortar locations. 

How do you get someone to do something they don’t want to do? A quintessential question asked by wives/husbands, children, parents, and – you guessed it – marketers and salespeople everywhere. 

Many books have been written on the power of persuasion, the science of likability, and a myriad of tactics to encourage someone to do something they aren’t enthusiastic about doing. From personal experience, I can tell you that this feat is quite difficult to accomplish. Fighting against the grain can be pointless – instead, try appealing to someone’s intrinsic motivations and tying them to what you want them to do.

In marketing platforms and systems like HubSpot, workflows are a staple of marketing automation and sales enablement. But are workflows the best measure for you? This blog outlines where workflows can be a marketing champion, and where they’ll weaken your efforts and drain your sales pipeline.

Let’s start with the basics.

“You can’t market what we do and you can’t sell what we do. We’re a commodity and an expense; companies aren’t looking for us – they only call when they need us.”

I’ve heard some version of this statement from dozens of clients and prospective clients over the 8+ years we’ve been in business. I heard it hundreds of times from my sales and marketing partners when I was in corporate software sales and marketing.

This is the final blog in my 3 Things You Need to Know to Nurture a Lead Through a Long Sales Cycle series. After covering buyer personas and the sales cycle, we’re at the most difficult but most important part of lead nurturing – sales and marketing alignment, affectionately known as smarketing.

Anyone who has a Facebook account knows it’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the number of posts you see on your news feed from friends and advertisers. As the power of organic reach decreases, the need for paid advertising increases, and Facebook’s advertising platform is one of the most powerful tools available to a marketer – it can reach over 2 billion active users all over the world in the blink of an eye. And every day, Facebook gets smarter about delivering ads to users to make it effective for businesses and consumers alike.

Here I go again! Right before the December holidays, I managed to get the energetic Courtney Barnes of Total Nutrition Technology to sit down and record an episode of Marketing Monster Mashup (the official podcast of Leading Results).

Website design is a daunting task for many business professionals – it requires a lot of time and thought they don’t typically include in their day.

Just like at the beginning of every year, you’ve seen a million articles talking about how you can be your best self and improve your business and marketing in 2018. This is one of those blogs, and somehow you’ve landed here – yay for SEO search volume on “2018 makeovers.”

People say beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and I can think of no place that is more applicable than in the world of creative web design. A simple tour of internet sites yields thousands of websites with different colors, shapes, styles, and features. Many of these websites are unique, many of them look the same, but at a glance, it’s easy to see that not all sites are created equal.

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Phil Singleton on our podcast, Marketing Monster Mashup (the official podcast of Leading Results). Phil shared what inspired him to work with small businesses on their search engine optimization (SEO) growth strategies.

The holiday season can be such a reflective time in our lives; I know for me a lot of the reflections involve taking a step back and realizing that I wouldn’t have excelled as much as I did this year if I didn’t have my coworkers to bounce ideas off of or ask for tips to make a project better – or even just to have a good laugh.

If you missed my first two blog posts, we’re halfway through a stretch of learning how to nurture a lead through a long sales cycle. To catch up, take a moment to read my overview blog and my blog about what you need to know about buyer personas.

If you’re like me, you hate contacting customer support – I’ll try anything I can think of to fix the problem before forcing myself to contact customer support. The few times I need to, I wish it could be an easy process, but it just isn’t. Everything a company does should revolve around providing a positive customer experience, but sometimes the customer support doesn’t meet those expectations.

A survey about millennials in the B2B marketing space showed that: 

• 22% of marketing and sales teams believe they deal with millennial buyers or influencers 21%-40% of the time
• 46% believe they deal with millennial buyers <20% of the time

Those marketing and sales teams are wrong – 73% of millennials are involved in B2B purchasing decisions.

Thanks to Google and social media, it’s easier than ever for customers to learn about your business. Positive reviews are critical in today’s marketplace; it’s been proven that reviews – both positive and negative – from real customers influence others’ decisions to buy from a business.

In my last blog, I offered three things you need to know as you nurture a lead through a long sales cycle. Each point is so important that I’m focusing my next several blogs on these points: the buyer persona, your unique sales cycle, and sales and marketing alignment.

It’s the time of year your thoughts should turn to planning, but if you’re like most executives or business owners, you have competing priorities. You’re trying to finish the current year on a high note. You have family obligations for holidays. And you’re trying to make plans for next year.

The debate continues – to shop on Thanksgiving Day or not to shop on Thanksgiving Day?

A Thanksgiving meal is like your marketing.

Wait, wait, don’t leave! We know it sounds cheesy, but hear us out.

Thor: Ragnarok is a considerable risk-taking departure in style from the first Thor movie, which was essentially a Shakespearean play meets superheroes. The second film in the franchise, Thor: The Dark World, was aptly named – a dark story where Thor even loses his love interest. Ragnarok is sort of the Norse version of Armageddon, so it could have easily continued the dark view and tone … but instead, Thor: Ragnarok (the third installment in the Thor universe and 17th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, by the way) goes the route of heavy comedy blended with action. The combination is pulling in huge profits and fantastic reviews as a result.

By now, you know that social media is important to your company’s success; the challenge comes with knowing which social platforms to target and how to best use them. This is relatively easy in the B2C world, but people get a bit more of a headache in the B2B world.

I had a conversation with someone who asked me if I thought the relationships they’re building on social media are as strong as the ones they build face to face. Interesting question. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each type of relationship.

Google My Business is a free listing service provided by Google that helps your business show up on Google Search and Maps. Google wants their users to have the best search experience, so they’ve made it easy for businesses to create listings where visitors can get information without even opening a website. With recent updates, Google My Business can be optimized for service businesses that don’t have brick-and-mortar locations but still want to focus on local traffic.

Twitter is the go-to place to voice your opinion about what’s going on in the world and a great place to connect with people who either already love your work or could become your perfect customer.

Recently, the Twitter bigwigs decided to increase the maximum length of a tweet from 140 to 280 characters – in essence, taking away the thrill of having only a small amount of space to form your thoughts.

I recently attended HubSpot’s INBOUND 2017 marketing convention in Boston and had the pleasure of interviewing Lisa Brouwer for our Marketing Monster Mashup podcast. Lisa shared her amazing story of why she drove her motorcycle from New York City to San Francisco on the 100th anniversary of the first women to take that historic trip.

Is marketing technology running your business into the ground or are you using marketing technology to gain new ground?

Take advantage of video as an exploding content medium by using it in all stages of the inbound methodology. Here's how:

Successful companies are always on the lookout for the finest marketing strategies to help them improve their position in the marketplace.

Effective marketing strategies, however, can only be fully maximized if executed through the right tactics. One of the most common marketing tactic marketers employ is trade show exhibition.

Some of the Leading Results team attended the Inbound conference in Boston this year. Check this video that recaps our experience!

So, let me set the scene for you … Sunday morning, 7 am … I join four of my coworkers in a 15-person van (leg room, major key) and begin our drive in Concord, NC. Fourteen hours later, we ended our journey in Boston, MA for the annual HubSpot INBOUND conference. With four long days packed full of amazing speakers and great content ahead of us, we got some sleep.

Two months ago, I stood outside the doors of the 9-year relationship that defined a large part of my adult life. With tears in my eyes, a suitcase in my right hand and my dog’s leash in my left, I looked behind me to see the closed door and even knowing I was making the right decision didn’t make the path in front of me less scary. I knew that closing that door would forever transform me – but again, that realization didn’t make it easier.

Now, I know what you’re thinking: why is this marketing person talking to me about breakups? Why should I care and how does this affect my bottom line?

Would you ever create a Facebook account for yourself and give the password to a person who doesn’t know you well? They’d have complete access to control how your family and friends see you online, and you’d have to go through that person to make any changes. Not a good idea.

I’m not really a horror guy, but I’m familiar with Stephen King – and considering his books have sold over 350 million copies, it’s safe to say a lot of people are familiar with Stephen King. I went through a phase as a kid where I read It, Christine, Cujo, and more; as an adult, I recently found myself in a matinee watching It: Chapter One.

I was scared.

If people don’t know about your brand, you won’t have success in your industry. Brand awareness leaves a lasting impression and people are more likely to tell others about you. In my blog last month, I talked about three reasons brand awareness makes the difference. Today I’m following up with three tips to increase your brand awareness.

Use these 3 tips to increase your brand awareness.

Businesses that perform technical consulting services that stretch out over a long period face a particularly difficult challenge when it comes to getting client testimonials and stories. At Leading Results, we work with a number of these types of companies (environmental consulting and remediation, ERP consultants, long-term labor outsourcing, and the like). You don’t run across these types of business on a daily basis – they perform very niche, but very vital, services for other businesses.

First, there’s a debate about whether the plural for the word “emoji” is “emoji” or “emojis” … This author prefers “emojis,” so that’s what this blog will use.

Emojis are visual representations of emotions, objects, or symbols. They used to be called emoticons (emotional icons) and were often created with punctuation marks and viewed sideways. :)

Now they’re called emojis and are pictures. 😊

They’ve long been used casually in instant messaging, social media, and texting, but now emojis are making their way into the workplace, sparking a debate about their appropriateness in business.

Smart business owners realize that outsourcing functions that aren’t core to the value they offer their customers is the key to growth. In fact, most small business owners agree that marketing isn't something they’re good at – and they don’t intend to learn.

That’s why it’s time to hire a marketing agency: you can outsource nearly every business function to a firm that will provide the service at a lower cost and higher quality than you could yourself.

If you know me professionally, you know how ironic it is that I’m writing about this topic, because delegating has always been EXTREMELY difficult for me. As a business owner, manager, or executive, you’re probably experiencing the same struggle I experience with outsourcing or delegating work – and because you’re reading this blog, you’re toying with the idea of outsourcing your marketing.

Two years ago, I found myself standing smack in the middle of Hubspot’s kitchen in Boston, blocking the way for busy HubSpotters grabbing breakfast before work. I’m sure they wondered what I was doing and thought I was a little crazy. In front of me stood several waffle-making stations next to a selection of incredible toppings, like chocolate chips (my favorite), bananas, berries, honey, apple, and every other fruit you can imagine. Everyone seemed so happy making their waffles, and many confessed to arriving early to partake in the waffle consumption they called Waffle Wednesday.

I’m in the market for a new TV ... and if you’ve shopped for a new TV before, you know there are a lot of identical products – they may have different logos, but they’re the same. The question then becomes “How do I decide which one to get?” and my immediate thought is “Oh, I know that brand, that looks cool” or “I’ve never heard of them before, pass.” In reality, the brand I’ve never heard of probably has the same quality as the familiar brand, but in my brain, they’re labeled ‘pass’ simply because of the word/symbol written on the front of the TV.

During the last few months, I’ve been reading about millennials – the good, the bad, and the ugly – and ultimately, I find myself fed up with the stereotypes. I have 2 daughters who fit squarely in the millennial demographic, and my experiences with them and their friends are nothing like the stereotypes out there.

Move over, baby boomers – the millennials now outnumber you.

They’re now the demographic every marketer needs to charm. But how? Millennials aren't a traditional audience, having grown up never knowing the pain of not having the internet, and are less “susceptible” to traditional marketing than generation x and baby boomers.

Millennials. They seem to be what everyone is discussing these days, and it probably has a lot to do with them outnumbering every other generation and completely influencing everything in their takeover. The hardest thing for marketers – or anyone else, for that matter – to pin down is what makes millennials tick. 

Spider-Man can crawl across the ceiling, shoot webs, sense danger, and lift cars. But it turns out he has another super power: emotional intelligence.

Tom Holland is the new actor portraying Peter Parker/Spider-Man in Spider-Man: Homecoming, and the box office and critics are eating up his take on the web spinner.

What do those words mean to you?

The answer depends, very simply, on how old you are.

So ... we love HubSpot. We love it so much we have enough shirts in the office to outfit a soccer team. We love it so much we think it's the best thing since sliced bread. Why? Because HubSpot enables us to service our clients in new and innovative ways.

Business has changed drastically in the last two decades – the importance of employee engagement has been magnified, business borders have been shattered, and more U.S. employees are working remotely.

Congratulations – you made a marketing video! It was a ton of work, but now you can sit back, relax, and watch the view count climb … right?

Maybe not. See, just posting a video isn’t enough. Like other content you post, many elements go into choosing topics, filming, editing, optimizing, publishing, and getting prospective customers to watch it.

Congratulations – you’ve successfully attracted someone to your website! Now: how do you stop them from clicking the dreaded back button so they have time to gain value from your content?

Incorporate motion.

Is the purpose of marketing to create leads?

No – it’s to create relationships.

I know you’re wondering what I mean, so allow me to explain: when you build the relationship, the business will come naturally.

Here are some ideas for building relationships through your marketing:

As marketers, we’re content creation machines. We create new blog posts, emails, guides, and website content to attract new prospects, nurture leads, and delight our customers. But we sometimes forget there’s priceless gold currently living on our website that just needs a little love to flourish. To realize your content’s existing potential, start by examining old blog posts.

Last month I talked about the Leading Results podcast, Marketing Monster Mashup, and our guest Darling Jimenez.

As a refresher, the podcast’s name is inspired by our content monster and company mascot Roco. He loves to devour content, so we added a podcast to his nutritional intake. I’m Matt, and I host the whole crazy affair.

You’ve probably heard, over and over, this common saying that’s been passed down from generation to generation: 

“You can catch more flies with honey than you can with vinegar.”

This age-old saying is true in dealing with people as well as flies, and especially true when dealing with outsourced companies that help your business with a variety of functions. 

We all sell every day. We sell ideas, we sell products, we sell our spouse or kids on why our idea is a good (or the right) idea. We sell ourselves on what we should do for ourselves – why to go to the workout class, why to eat this, and why not to do that.

Throughout our blog, you’ll notice that we discuss a wide variety of topics relating to marketing best practices, including tips and tricks to improve your lead generation efforts. As a team, we constantly push ourselves and push the envelope to create the best results for our client’s short- and long-term goals. We’re in the business of creativity, thought leadership, and having a deep understanding of consumer buying patterns.

There comes a point in time where everyone needs a HUG – a HubSpot User Group, that is! A HUG is a meeting where attendees learn marketing tips and tools to expand their marketing efforts, and the great news is that it’s open to anyone interested in learning new marketing ideas, not just HubSpot users. In the age of technology and social media, it’s important that we don’t stray from perhaps the most important relationship builders: face-to-face meetings.

Did you know Leading Results has a podcast? Well, we do, and it’s called “Marketing Monster Mashup.”

What’s with the name, you ask? Well, Roco is our company mascot and content monster. He loves to devour content, so we decided to add a podcast to his nutritional intake. I’m Matt, and I host the whole crazy affair.

In life, we’re forced to make choices we don’t want to make, and these choices come with a pretty little basket of consequences wrapped in a bow. Sometimes we realize we made the wrong choice when we peek inside the basket; other times we smile triumphantly when we see that our choices have been successful.

In business, we also have to make decisions we might not want to make – leads and potential clients come across our desks that we must choose to pursue or forego. These are some of the most important decisions you make.   

Between Chaos and Organization, You’ll Find Creativity

I said that phrase today and thought, “Wow, I need to write a blog post about that.”

Here’s why:

First things first: No automatic editing tool can ever take the place of a human – nothing is better than a professional editor who understands the natural flow of language and has a strong grasp of grammar and punctuation.

That being said, if you’re the human who does the editing and you want to take a last pass over your work, or if the human who does the editing is unavailable and you absolutely need to send something out, there are several helpful options available online. 

I’ve switched roles at Leading Results and love it! I spend my time talking with people to see how we can help them grow their business.

I recently read an article by Business Daily that blew my mind – “The Cost of a Bad Hire.” Some of the statistics on bad hires and the cost they have for agencies were surprisingly high. This sparked an interest in me on the topic of personality versus experience and whether one outweighed the other or if they were equally important. 

As marketers – and especially marketers that work for agencies – our goal is to generate qualified leads for our clients and our own companies. Of course, there’s a lot of other work that goes into being a standout marketer, but at the end of the day, if we don’t produce sales qualified leads for our clients or company, we’re out of a job.

If your current lead generation tactics make you feel like you’re treading water in the deep end, don't worry – the solution is easier than you think.

And it very likely has something to do with your frame of mind.

Like many small business owners and employees of small businesses, I attend networking functions. Last year I went to an event that had a small roundtable introduction followed by a brief mixer. You had 60 seconds to promote whatever you wanted and sell yourself. I was starting Leading Results’ podcast, Marketing Monster Mashup, so I closed our commercial with an invitation for guests.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend HubSpot’s Partner Day, where they invite their Gold, Platinum, and Diamond partners to hear about future directions and collaborate on strategy. Much of what they cover is under non-disclosure, so I won’t disclose, but this blog was triggered by a passing comment made by a presenter that really resonated, so I wanted to repeat and expand on it.

If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.

(Or, as Blaise Pascal would have said: Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parce que je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.)

So … how are you doing with those New Year’s resolutions? Can you remember any of them? Are you still working on any of them?

When I sat down to write this blog, I thought about all the things I could write about: how to increase your website’s effectiveness, how to design your website for conversion, how to hire the right personalities, etc., etc.

However, nothing was compelling enough. I wanted to take it back to the basics and address a more human topic that ties to marketing but also life.

I’m 99.99% certain you get graymail – and if you use email marketing, I'm 99.99% sure you’ve sent graymail. Don’t be ashamed; in the past, I’ve been guilty, too.

But now that you’re here, it’s time to spill the ugly truth: graymail hurts your email deliverability and database health more than you know … and here’s why.

There are a handful of factors Google uses to decide what sites appear in the search results when a person searches for a local business. (Let’s face it, we're all living in Google’s world.) Is it your site searchers see – or do they see one of your competitors' sites?

While we’ve previously shared our thoughts on reviews, schema markup, and citations, today we’re going to talk about the linchpin of the local listing game – your Google My Business page.

Search marketing, SEO, SEM, pay-per-click, social media – if you read marketing journals or talk to a recent marketing college grad, you might think these are the only tactics that matter.

Blogging is a key component to a successful content marketing strategy, as it keeps your website and blog up-to-date, relevant, and continuously educational for your prospects; it also serves to nurture your leads and enlighten your current clients.

But sometimes life happens: you get writer’s block, time is limited, resources are allocated away from blogging. It happens to the best of companies and writers.

Supposedly – because really, how do they figure this stuff out? – our collective attention spans have shrunk to a discouragingly low 8.25 seconds.

Also supposedly, goldfish have an attention span of nine seconds.

... but why would anyone read your blog?

Good question!

My last blog post dealt with Amazon’s Alexa – all the fun things it can do, how it’s made my life easier, and how much more I feel like I’m living in Star Trek now! Today, however, I’m going to talk about the potential downsides to Alexa and other artificial intelligence (AI) in terms of privacy.

It doesn’t matter if your clients tell their best friends that you’re the best thing since sliced bread – they’ll still Google you, and what they find is part of the buying process.

Controlling what people find when they do an online search is known as reputation management, which has a dictionary definition of “the practice of attempting to shape public perception of a person or organization by influencing online information about that entity.”

The future is here, or at least beginning now. Remember in Star Trek when Captain Kirk would ask the computer a question and it would answer? Well, the Amazon Echo (aka Alexa) can do that – you can even program it to respond to "Computer" instead of "Alexa" to feel more like a space-navigating captain.

One of the main ways to lock in a strong marketing strategy is by engaging with blogs, webinars, and other relevant content that’s not yours; you’ll see nuances you’ve never considered about topics you think you know like the back of your hand. It will keep you on top of industry news, best practices, dos, don’ts, and faux paus, and, hopefully, a step ahead of your competition.  

If you’re a local business – that is, most or all your business comes from customers living in your community – you need to be very serious about local SEO.

There’s good news: ranking locally for the kinds of things your prospects are looking for isn’t rocket science, and maybe-not-quite-so-good news: it takes a serious commitment to a handful of things.

Nothing can break a newfound business relationship faster than a misunderstanding of personalities and intrinsic qualities. Understanding and appreciating one’s mind frame and personality goes a long way to creating and maintaining a successful partnership. It also offers an opportunity to understand how to engage and inspire team members of varying personalities to work cohesively.

Michael Masterson is an entrepreneur whose first business opened when he was 11 years old. Forty-five years later, he has started or co-started dozens of successful businesses – with a strategy that is vastly different than anything you’ve heard of yet: Ready, Fire, AIM. (Which is, incidentally, a book; follow the link to find it on Amazon.) 

I recently participated in a roundtable discussion at the Cabarrus County Chamber of Commerce. The focus was the changing face of social media, and the conversation was eye-opening. Due to working in the marketing industry, I take a lot for granted; what I quickly understood is that most small businesses have no idea how to generate business through social networking.

It's a question that every business owner or manager faces when they consider hiring outside consultants for help: “Am I better off working with someone who knows my business or better off working with someone who knows marketing and knows what’s going on?”

To put it bluntly, that’s the wrong question. Here’s why.

Over the last three years of working in the marketing trenches, I’ve come across countless reasons why people’s marketing efforts are ineffective. Often, these efforts, which require monumental energy, have, at the center, the right intention – but are in some ways misguided. I came to this conclusion after attending a salsa dancing social where I learned some important lessons about dancing salsa but also about marketing.

If you’re like us, you planned too much for 2016, and there were customers you didn’t get, money you didn’t make, and goals you never accomplished. Instead of sighing and pushing those goals straight off the 2016 page and onto the 2017 page, however, we decided to try something different this year.