How did inbound marketing begin? Taking a look at the vast timeline from the first Web search engine to the adoption of social media as a marketing tool helps put the inbound marketing revolution in perspective.

By identifying key milestones in the development of online marketing such as the creation of RSS and the launch of Facebook, one can trace the demise of traditional outbound marketing and recognize the importance of HubSpot and the integral role it plays in today's society.

Inbound Marketing Kit

Learn more about inbound marketing and how to combine blogging, SEO and social media for results. Download our inbound marketing kit.

Become a Fan on Facebook Get inside info and advance notice of HubSpot's free marketing webinars, ebooks and more. Click here -->

Anna Darling, a struggling marketer on a mission to bring inbound marketing to Outbound Enterprises, refuses to adhere to her company's dated and ineffective marketing methods. As she suffers the wrath of her boss and colleagues, her best friend offers encouragement and an office romance fuels her fire.

Through her struggle, Anna learns that through faith, courage and data ... anything is possible.

Coming to a marketing team near you.  

CREW

Director and Film Editor: Rebecca Corliss
Hair and Design: Shannon Sweetser
Set Crew: Rebecca Churt & Roshni Mirchandani

CAST

The Inbound Marketer: Julie Devaney
The Romantic: Stephen O'Keefe
The Boss: Buck Flather
The Best Friend: Pamela Seiple
The Sales Guy: Kyle James

How to Use Online Video for Inbound Marketing

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Which statement best describes how social media marketing is perceived within your organization at budget time?

• Considering that social media is at a very early stage in its lifecycle, a 7% confidence rating that it is producing measureable ROI and should be funded liberally is outstanding.

• Conservative budget increases by almost half of all marketers surveyed -- based on the promise that social media will eventually produce ROI -- is another vote of confidence for this marketing channel in the longer term.

• The 17% of organizations who still believe social media marketing is basically free and should stay that way, are destined to get what they pay for.

Not surprisingly, those who have reached the strategic phase of social marketing maturity are far more likely to be producing measurable ROI or at least seeing signs of a return on their investment on the horizon.

On the other hand, marketers in the trial phase of social marketing maturity are more than four times as likely to not recognize the value this tactic has for organizations willing to invest appropriate time and resources.

For additional research data and insights about social marketing, register today for tomorrow's webinar. Based on the findings from MarketingSherpa's 2010 Social Media Marketing Benchmark Report, the webinar will feature a Case Study on HubSpot's Social Marketing Strategy.

Video: How to Use Social Media for Lead Generation

Learn how to use social media for lead generation. Download the free video to leverage Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites to generate leads and customers.

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Twitter is a great tool to help achieve a number of business and marketing goals, whether they be promoting content, connecting with prospects or building relationships with other thought leaders and industry experts.  However, there is one Twitter use I think many may overlook -- the opportunity to facilitate customer support. 

In an effort to streamline customer support throughout the upcoming tax season, popular online tax software TurboTax is launching a new initiative to help its customers (and other taxpayers) through the daunting process of paying taxes by answering questions on -- you guessed it -- Twitter! 

As of yesterday, TurboTax has created a new Twitter account, @TeamTurboTax, specifically devoted to the new initiative and enlisted 14 of its employees to answer people's software and general tax questions.  Similarly, TurboTax has also created a TurboChat application on its Facebook page for the very same purpose. 

Why it works for marketing and PR:

In my opinion, this is brilliant!  I love seeing companies using Twitter as more than just an endless feed to promote their content, and as a public relations professional, using social media for customer relations and customer support completely makes sense.  Here are a few reasons why:

1. TurboTax is going where its customer already are.  Rather than making them sign up for another support website or using a separate chat service, TurboTax is giving its customers the opportunity to communicate using an application they may already be signed up for.
2. It's timely.  Tax season is without a doubt a busy time for a company like TurboTax.  Eliciting other tools such as social media sites to manage the influx of customer support issues is smart.
3. It's public.  TurboTax is taking something that is usually a one-on-one, customer-to-support process out in the open for the world to see.  Take a look at the TeamTurboTax feed and anyone can see how well they're handling customer issues.  Done right, and this can be great for TurboTax's PR efforts.
4. It exhibits industry expertise to non-customers.  Not only is TurboTax answering questions from their software's customers but also from non-customers. Answering general tax questions shows their tax paying expertise and possibly attracts new customers to its software.
   

So now one question remains.  Are you taking advantage of Twitter to interact with and support your customers?  If not, start brainstorming ways you can utilize the tool to benefit your customer service efforts!

Webinar: Twitter for Marketing and PR

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This guest post is written by Jill Konrath, author of Selling to Big Companies.  She helps sellers crack into accounts, speed up their sales cycle and win more business.

Let's face it. As business professionals, we know we need to "sell", but we don't love doing it. With images of self-serving salespeople dancing in our minds, we vow to never stoop as low as those tacky telemarketers as we prospect for new customers.

Instead, we'll be paragons of professionalism. If we reach a prospect's voicemail, we'll leave a message, perhaps one like this:

As we hang up the phone, we pride ourselves on how gracious we were. Not one bit pushy either. In short, perfect.

Well, guess what?!

When your prospects hear that "nice" message, the first thing that pops into their heads is, "Another self-serving salesperson!" Then they hit the delete button as fast as they can. It happens with email too.

Or if you actually get a person on the phone, they'll brush you off right away by saying, "We're happy with our present vendor" or "We're not interested."

Why is this happening? It's simple. Your non-salesy message is "salesy." You may not think it is, but if you got dozens of near-identical messages each day from salespeople, you'd change your mind in a hurry.

In short, you have violated one of the 7 Paradoxical Sales Principles.

#1: To win more sales, stop selling.

When you talk about your own company, you're selling - even if you do it nicely. You'll really cross the line if you use any verbiage like one-stop shopping, industry leader, user-friendly, scalable, best-in-class, robust, or innovative.

In fact, if you say even one nice word about your company, you're seen as a typical salesperson - despite all your best efforts not to  be. So stop talking about yourself.

A Fresh Perspective

Focus on your customer instead. That's the antidote to "selling." In your next call on a prospect, think about how you can quickly:

• Demonstrate your knowledge of what's happening in their firm or industry. 
• Align your message with their issues, goals, objectives and concerns. 
• Bring them ideas, insights and information about highly relevant topics.
• Sound like a colleague who's been thinking about their business challenges.

That's what it takes to capture your prospect's attention today. Your "nice" spiel doesn't work anymore. It just gets you d-e-l-e-t-e-d.

Try this instead.

See the difference. It's palpable. You're a business peer. A real professional. A person who brings substantial value. Someone worth meeting.

One More Thing
Click here to download the free eBook: 7 Paradoxical Sales Principles.


Photo credit: Steven Brisson

How to Generate Leads for Small Business

Learn how small businesses can level the playing field and generate leads efficiently by leveraging inbound Internet marketing strategies and tools. Download our Lead Generation for Small Business Webinar.

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The days of controlling your marketing message and interrupting your prospects to tell it are over. Today, your message is what your customers and prospects say it is. And the marketers who win are those who listen to and empower their customer base to evangelize their brand.

That's exactly what Joseph Jaffe talks about in his new book, Flip the Funnel. I had a chance to sit down with him at the MarketingSherpa Email Summit last month and talk about the ideas in his book. Below is the full interview, along with a few highlights.

#SherpaEmail Interview: Joseph Jaffe on Flipping the Funnel

Interview Highlights

• Customer retention is the new acquisition. Why are you spending all your time on talking to tons of strangers? Focus on the people who are already engaged with you: your customers. By listening to and empowering your customers, you will in turn earn their respect and affection, and they will become evangelists and attract new customers.
• Empower your customers to become evangelists. Your users are your most important influencers. Empower them with the tools and process to share their experience with others.
• Flip the funnel. The traditional funnel centers on AIDA: Awareness, Interest, Desire, Action. If we flip that funnel on its head, we get ADIA: Acknowledgment, Dialogue, Incentivization, Activation. This flipped funnel focuses on rewarding and empowering your customers to talk about you.
• Embrace new media in order to communicate with customers. New media channels allow you to communicate with your customers directly and allow them to share their experiences with their networks in a new, more public way. Jump right in and start building these key relationships.

How are you flipping the funnel?

How to Generate Leads for Small Business

Learn how small businesses can level the playing field and generate leads efficiently by leveraging inbound Internet marketing strategies and tools. Download our Lead Generation for Small Business Webinar.

Become a Fan on Facebook Get inside info and advance notice of HubSpot's free marketing webinars, ebooks and more. Click here -->

An earlier HubSpot study shows that small businesses that blog get 55% more website visitors. While the article provides a well-supported analysis of the power of blogging, harnessing that power is not as easy as it seems.

Does setting up a blog alone result in more site traffic?

A follow-up study shows that the mere act of blogging does not guarantee more site traffic. Anyone can set up a blog and leave it idle as initial excitements fade. Businesses that actively manage their blogs, however, fare much better than those without blogs.

A study of 2,168 HubSpot customers shows that businesses that published at least 5 blog articles in the last 7 days draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic and 1.12 times more referral traffic than those who don't blog at all.

The chart conveys a clear message -- active blogs are associated with and likely have an impact on site traffic. This finding coincides with common sense: out of large chunks of business-relevant content (1 post per weekday), blog readers will likely find something engaging and proceed to learn more about a company.

How do companies that already blog compare to each other? Does the frequency of blogging affect the number of site visitors?

The answer is yes. Among companies that blog, organic search and referrals traffic are high for those who published more blog articles up to date.

We can infer from the chart that blogging, which is equivalent to content building, helps attract more site visitors. The rationale is similar: more blog articles mean more chances to create something that grabs readers' attention and indirectly build up a company's reputation.

Everything takes time, but only if time is well-spent. Start blogging today if you haven't, and continue blogging if you have.  In other words, take the next step whenever you are ready. Just as we HubSpotters strive to provide you more relevant, in-depth, and thoughtful analyses, we hope you carry on in the world of online marketing with courage and persistence.

Photo: Temari 09 on Flickr

Webinar: Advanced Business Blogging

Learn how to build your business blog into an inbound marketing machine. Download the free webinar to learn how to create a thriving blog.

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Episode #76 - January 22, 2010
(Episode Length: 24 minutes, 3 seconds)

Intro

• How to interact on Twitter: @karenrubin and @mvolpe with www.HubSpot.tv in your tweet.
  
• Subscribe in iTunes: http://itunes.hubspot.tv
  
• Brian Halligan is speaking at the Franklin Club in Boston on Feb 1st at 6pm -- Cost $65 (Use coupon code hubspottv and save $10)

Doing it Right

• Partners in Health launched Stand with Haiti
• http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti - Website Grade: 89
• Twitter - http://twitter.com/PIH_org - Twitter Grade: 99.8
• Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/partnersinhealth
• Blog - http://www.standwithhaiti.org/haiti/news - posting multiple times per day with updates

Headlines

Twitter User Growth Slowing

• Twitter User Growth Slowed From Peak of 13% in March 2009 to 3-5% in October
• In October 2009 the Twitter user base grew 3.5% - robust growth for most web applications, but far below the 13% growth in users Twitter experienced in March 2009.*
• Today the average Twitter account has 300 followers; in July, it had 70
• The average account now follows 173 accounts; in July it was only following 47
• The average account today has posted 420 updates; in July that number was 119
• Marketing Takeaway: Twitter is just one of many social media channels.  Diversify!

How to Fail at Social Media

• How to Fail at B2B Social Media
• Siloed Social Media Practitioners - No matter if you work internal for the company or are providing social media services through an agency or as a consultant, you must be connected to the rest of the marketing or communications team.
• Lack of Engagement - After establishing accounts on social networks like Twitter and Facebook, you only tweet out your own content. You set up automated tools to gradually grow your followers, but you do not engage with them.
• Rely Only on Social Media - Continue to invest in traditional communications, but always include links to social sites to build those communities. A customer who is a heavy Facebook user will notice a Facebook logo on your printed catalog and become a fan.
• Don't Give It Enough Time - Building a community takes time and making drastic, knee-jerk changes too quickly without allowing natural growth will ensure your failure.
• Marketing Takeaway - Social media is a PART of your inbound marketing strategy. Create good content and use social media to help you promote it.

Marketers Shifting Budget from Outbound to Inbound

• 84% of Marketers to Shift Portion of Direct Marketing Budgets to Social Media
• 66% of marketers plan to invest in social media over the next 12 months, but only 36% plan to monitor and analyze the success-or failure-of their efforts
• 84% of Marketers are shifitng a portion of thier direct marketing (outbound) budgets to social media (inbound)
• Marketing Takeaway: Make sure you are re-allocating your budget and efforts regularly, based on results.

Forum Fodder

• From Cynthie at www.Inbound.org -  How can I get my baby boomer clients to interact with us more through Twitter or Facebook? We do a lot of work with what we call "Active Adults", "Active Seniors", or "Super Seniors". Ages ranging from 55-95. Most are okay with email now, which has improved in the last 5 years. Some are starting to look at FB.
• Community answers: Add links to your different social media profiles to make it easy for them to find you
• Why do you want to make them do this?
• Maybe try educating them in a seminar, video or article?

Marketing Tip of the Week: Don't put your eggs all in one basket. Make sure you have a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy.

Closing

Video: How to Use Social Media to Manage Your Company Brand Online

Learn how to use social media to manage your company brand. Download the free video and learn how to manage your company brand effectively using social media.

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Mmm ... a slice of pie.  Too bad we're not really talking about dessert here.

Our top inbound marketing article this week discusses how you can slice up your social media pie into various types of engagement in different size pieces to suit your taste. Oh yeah -- and we'll let you have one of the bigger pieces.

1. Slicing Your Social Media Pie

Author: Chris Brogan on OPEN Forum

Brogan offers a great basic frame for how you should devote your time on social media marketing, dividing your pie into three slices: listening, creating and communicating.  His suggestion is to start by focusing 20% on listening, 40% on creating and the final 40% on communicating.

While Brogan thinks this is a good recipe for success, he also understands people have different tastes.  Perhaps you have to devote some of your time to other parts of your marketing mix.  It's okay to cut more slices and find a formula that works.  Now, I love Chris Brogan's analogy here, but I've gotta admit: It's making me hungry.  

Lesson: Divide and conquer your social media efforts.

2. 4 Tech Trends You Must Understand to be an Effective Marketer

Author: Elyssa Pallai of ReadWriteWeb

Elyssa's post discusses the most recent trends that should be top-of-mind for marketers trying to stay on top of marketing in a technology-driven world.  While she doesn't recommend forgetting about concepts like search engine optimization, she reminds us how important it is to embrace the power and opportunities afforded by the latest trends.

What latest trends is she talking about?  The real-time Web, social networks, the mobile Web and location-based marketing top the list.  If you don't understand these technologies and what they mean for marketing, you better get with it soon, she says.

Lesson: Technology trends are constantly changing.  Stay on top of the latest developments for maximum marketing potential.

3. 20 Metrics To Effectively Track Social Media Campaigns

Author: Chris Bennett of Search Engine Land

Social media is a powerful tool that can affect an entire business directly and indirectly, but at the end of the day, you still need to prove your engagement is working.  Let's face it -- measuring the performance of your programs is important for every marketing undertaking.

For now, Chris focuses on measuring social media initiatives, highlighting a variety of metrics marketers can use to analyze their efforts.  Some of these metrics include traffic, unique visitors, referral URLs, conversions and backlinks, to name a few.

Lesson: Use marketing and Web analytics to regularly measure your social media efforts so you know what is and isn't working.

4. How to Become an A-List Blogger

Author: Glen Allsopp of Copyblogger

So you're a fellow blogger.  Chances are you don't want to be just a blogger but a great blogger.  Good thing Glen has some A-list tips for folks like you (hey -- I'm one of you!) who are trying to build a popular business blog.

His top tips include:

• Make content your #1 focus
• Stick to your own guidelines
• Recognize your own influence
• Look at "who," not "what"
  

Lesson: A successful blog starts with the blogger. Focus on A-list qualities to build an A-list blog.

5. 5 Ways to Share Content to Create Referrals

Author: John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing

As a business, creating content is one of the best tactics you can use to get found online.  Of course, you can create all the content you want, but if you don't get it into the hands of your prospects, you're going to be wasting a lot of your time.

While John definitely advocates promotion via social media, he also recognizes another way to amplify the reach of your content: through referals.  A few ways he recommends you generate them is by writing guest blog posts, hosting a group in social networks, encouraging people to bring a friend to events/webinars you're hosting, co-branding your content or creating an event.

Lesson: Explore opportunities to generate referals as an alternative content marketing strategy.

Photo by Ralph Daily

Video: How to Use Social Media to Attract More Customers

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