Sep 09 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business, Inbound Marketing

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part III

Hi there readers!

Welcome to the final part of our series featuring Hubspot’s, “How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers“. Read on for more awesome information on turning your blog into a success!

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

…continued…

4) Create a Blog Subscription Landing Page

Now that you’ve got all these great subscribe CTAs, you need somewhere to point them to. Sure, you already have your subscribe module on your blog’s homepage (at least you do now after our second tip, right?). But if you start promoting subscription to your blog via other marketing channels like social media and email (more on that later), it will start to get a bit complicated to direct visitors to that module. You’d have to say something like this:

“Go to blog.hubspot.com, and … see that little field on the top, right-hand side of the blog? Enter your email address there to subscribe.”

That isn’t exactly the optimal way to promote blog subscription, is it? And can you imagine trying to fit that into a 140-character update for Twitter? Furthermore, you’d be adding a lot of friction to the conversion process, meaning you’re guaranteed to lose out on some valuable subscribers along the way.

So what’s a more effective way to convert blog visitors into subscribers? Think … you know the answer. It’s the same way you convert website visitors into leads. That’s right — a landing page!

Create a blog subscription landing page to convert those blog discoverers into dedicated blog subscribers. This will become the heart and soul of your blog subscriber conversion efforts, allowing you to more easily promote blog subscription through your other marketing assets. So instead of that convoluted message directing people to the little module on your blog’s homepage, you can just link your CTAs directly to your landing page and say things like, “Visithttp://blog.hubspot.com/subscribe to subscribe to the HubSpot Marketing Blog!” in your social media and email promotions. So much simpler, right?

Tips for Optimizing Your Subscribe Landing Page

Optimize your subscription page using the same best practices you would for any other landing page on your website. Include descriptive headers/subheaders that capture visitors’ attention and summarizes what they’ll get, demonstrate the value of subscribing in your landing page copy, include a high-quality image, and emphasize email subscription by placing the form above the fold. You can also incorporate other elements — like social proof — to help boost conversion rates. Speaking of boosting conversion rates, don’t be afraid to do some A/B testing like you would for any other landing page (here’s a great article on landing page A/B testing to get you started).

Last but now least, if your blogging software gives you the option, offer your prospective subscribers frequency options so they can choose how much (or how little) email they want to receive for their blog notifications. (HubSpot Customers: If you’re using the new Blog COS, you can provide instant, daily, weekly, and monthly email frequency options to your subscribers.)

5) Add a Blog Opt-In Check Box to Your Landing Pages

I’m really excited to share this tip with you, because it caused us to increase our blog subscribers by 128% in just 3 months’ time. I kid you not. And all we did was add a new check box field to all our landing page forms so people could subscribe to our blog with just one click. Here’s what I mean:

If your blogging software is integrated with the rest of your marketing software, this trick is very easy to implement. At the simplest level, you need to have control over the fields on your landing page forms as well as the ability to export a list of people who opt in to your blog through these forms so you can add them to your blog subscriber list. And HubSpot users who use the new HubSpot COS (note: this will not work on HubSpot’s legacy CMS), will be able to easily start boosting their email subscribers with this little trick without any manual maintenance once it’s set up. To learn how to set it up, we have detailed instructions in this blog post. Check ’em out!

Just keep in mind that the new blog subscribers you generate through these landing page check boxes won’t impact new lead generation directly. Because these people are subscribing to your blog because they’re filling out forms for your lead gen offers, they’re already leads. However, they do have the potential to increase the readership and help you reach new audiences through mechanisms like social sharing and email forwarding. You’ll also benefit from using your free blog content as a way to nurture existing leads.

6) Do Some Email Marketing

In addition to promoting blog subscription through social media and CTAs on your website,email marketing can serve as another effective channel for driving blog subscriptions. Here are two great email marketing methods through which to promote blog subscription:

In a Dedicated Send

Promote blog subscription to different segments of contacts in your marketing database. Tailor the messaging and language you use in your dedicated send to the interests and needs of that segment. For example, you could segment your list by people who recently converted on a particular offer, and promote subscription by providing examples of articles related to topic of the offer they downloaded as a way to demonstrate the value of subscribing.

Within Lead Nurturing Workflows

Not every email within your lead nurturing workflows needs to promote a lead gen offer. Switch it up by featuring some of your big hit blog articles targeted at the types of people you’re emailing in your segmented workflows.

In what other ways can you turn your casual blog readers into dedicated subscribers? Share your tactics in the comments!

And to learn about the other critical steps to blog marketing that can help you increase the reach and ROI of your business blog, download our ebook, How to Grow & Scale Your Business Blog.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in October 2012 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.”

Contact us if you want a website or inbound marketing campaign that will rock your business’s world. Until next time, stay classy!

Sep 06 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business, Inbound Marketing, Social Media

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part II

Howdy readers!

Welcome to Part II of our blog series featuring Hubspot’s article, “How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers“. Keep reading for more tips on having more subscribers and better CTA’s (call to actions).

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

….continued…

Tips for Encouraging Subscription

One great tip for encouraging blog subscription is to use social proof to show new visitors just how popular your blog is among their peers. If you have impressive traffic or subscriber numbers, consider showcasing those. Something as simple as “Join more than 1,000 [insert persona]s who already subscribe!” can help you convert those visitors who may be on the fence.

Another smart way to incentivize blog subscription is through the use of free offers. Check out how HubSpot partner IMPACT Branding & Design does it on its blog. They provide a little something extra for new subscribers by also providing a free ebook (something usually reserved for visitors who complete a much longer form):

3) Promote Blog Subscription With Smart Calls-to-Action (CTAs)

Be more “in your face” about converting your blog visitors into subscribers by creating subscriber CTAs and placing them directly within each of your blog articles. Don’t worry — they don’t have to replace your articles’ lead-gen CTAs; just insert your blog subscription CTA as a secondary CTAdirectly below the one you’re using for lead generation (like we’ve done at the bottom of this very post!). Here’s what I mean:

If you’re worried about it impacting the clickthrough rate (CTR) on your lead-gen CTA, just keep a close eye on your CTA analytics. When we implemented this on the HubSpot blog, we didn’t notice any dip in CTR on our lead-gen CTAs, but you should always test for yourself.

And Make Them Smart!

Here’s the thing: If a visitor is already subscribed to your blog, it doesn’t really make sense to continue displaying your subscribe CTAs to them, now does it? These people are already subscribed, and it’s a much better, more contextual use of your blog’s real estate to show off that lead gen CTA front and center — by itself. So how do you make sure you’re only showing your subscribe CTAs to visitors who aren’t yet subscribed? Technology, my friends … technology. I like to call these CTAs “magic CTAs,” because sometimes they’re invisible 🙂

To create these “magic” CTAs, you are, however, at the mercy of your software. They’re powered by dynamic content, so you’ll need marketing software with this type of functionality.(Note: HubSpot customers can use a combination of the new HubSpot Blog COS and Smart CTAs to create these. You can find instructions about how to set them up in this blog post.)

Where appropriate, use your blog subscription CTAs on other pages of your website as well to give visitors a low-commitment conversion alternative. You might also consider adding your blog subscription CTAs to other Smart CTA groups to allow you to automatically customize which CTAs get shown to users in different lifecycle stages or based on specific list criteria.

…to be continued…

Contact us if you need a website, or the website you have needs some work and a blog. Have a great day, and stick around for Part II of How to Get More Subscribers. Tootledoo, and have a great weekend!

Sep 05 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business, Social Media

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part I

Good morning NSquared readers!

Do you have a blog?

If so, chances are you want people to read it, right? Well Hubspot posted a fantastic article, “How to Concert Casual Blog Visitors into Dedicated Subscribers“. Check out Part I below:

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

You probably know all too well by now that content creation is a very necessary function of successful inbound marketing. And for the inbound marketers who embrace that, abusiness blog is one of the most reliable and effective platforms for publishing much of the content they create.

But if you’ve been consistently blogging for a while, you probably have all the business blogging basics down pat. So wouldn’t it be great if you could take your blogging to the nextlevel, scaling the impact of your blog so it makes an even bigger, better, and more powerful dent in your marketing results?

Enter the concept of ‘blog marketing,’ which refers not to using a blog to market your business, but instead to implementing a marketing strategy to grow and scale the impact of your blog. In other words, marketing for your blog. There are three critical steps to blog marketing: 1) getting your blog discovered by new visitors, 2) converting those visitors into dedicated subscribers, and 3) leveraging your blog evangelists to share your content and attract brand new audiences.

So let’s say you’ve worked through step number 1, and you’ve got a good amount of blog traffic flowing. How can you get those folks to stick around and keep coming back so they become avid readers and fans of your blog content? With step number 2: by converting those visitors into subscribers! In this article, we’ll give you some great tips for turning those casual visitors into valuable, dedicated blog subscribers.

1) Blog Frequently (and Make Sure It’s High Quality)

First things first: frequency matters. How can you expect visitors to subscribe to your content if you rarely or infrequently publish anything for them to come back to? You wouldn’t exactly be making the strongest case for subscription. If you really want to scale your blog, you need to make a commitment to boosting your blogging frequency. According to an internal study of HubSpot customers, businesses that blog more than once per week add new blog subscribers at twice the rate of businesses that blog just once per month.

Yes, frequency matters — so work your way up. If you’re currently blogging once a month, work your way up to once a week. If you blog once a week, work your way up to a few times a week. Truthfully, the most successful blogs publish content daily — or multiple times a day.

Keep in mind, however, that a boost in frequency can’t come with a decrease in quality. Your new visitors won’t be enticed to subscribe if they don’t find your content to be worthy of their attention. And with all the crappy content out there, you can’t afford mediocrity if you want to win over those new visitors. For more on creating high-quality content, here’s how to tell if your content is actually valuable, and here are eight instant ways to improve your content’s quality if it’s not.

2) Encourage Blog Subscription (Particularly Email)

If you want people to subscribe, encourage blog subscription! Sounds simple right? But it’s amazing how often I have to hunt through a blog’s homepage to find where in the heck to subscribe. Make it easy for visitors to subscribe — put your subscribe module above the fold on your sidebar, and display it prominently.

Also notice how I mentioned you should emphasize email subscription. Remember, there are two ways your visitors can subscribe to your blog — via RSS, and via email. Both are valuable, but email subscription can have a much bigger impact than RSS subscription. Email boosts traffic to your blog, since subscribers get emailed whenever new content gets published (compared to RSS, which subscribers have to manually check on their own).

In fact, 14% of our monthly traffic to the HubSpot blog comes from email. And to tie this all back to the importance of blogging frequency, in that same study of HubSpot customers we mentioned earlier, we learned that businesses that blog more than once per week generate 9x more blog email traffic than businesses that blog just once per month. Convinced that you should put more of an effort into generating email subscribers yet?”

Contact us if you need a website, inbound marketing campaign, or IT consulting. Stay tuned for part II where we share more tips on boosting your subscribers and talk about CTA’s (call to actions).

May 03 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business

The Specifics on Leads

Graphs are Legit

Yesterday we talked a bit on how a blog can generate leads and the simple how to’s to get started. Today, we are going to show you the specific perks that leads give your business. And when we say specific, we mean line graphs, bar graphs, and percentages…that’s right folks, the heavy stuff. How Blogging Can Increase Your Lead Generation by 67% by Ana Hoffman is our source for these fantastic specifics. Check it out below!

“How Blogging Can Increase Your Lead Generation by 67%

When I am asked a question “How do I generate more leads for my business?”, my answer is always the same.

Start with social media networks and a blog – these are the best ways to start generating quick traffic and cash.

I am not saying that a blog will make you rich.

However, it CAN and WILL play a huge role in promoting you and your business and generating traffic and leads for your primary business.

Here are some of the questions and concerns I get in response:

People wonder if all this effort I tell them to put into blogging will pay off.
They wonder what their return on investment (ROI) really is.
They want to know whether all this new content I tell them to post will really make a difference in the search engine ranking and blog traffic.
Will all this posting really generate leads for their business?
Will it REALLY ultimately translate into a bigger downline and money in their pocket?

All valid questions.

To answer them, I will need some help from The State of Inbound Lead Generation study by HubSpot.

How Do You Achieve Double Digit Lead Growth?

This study analyzes 1,400 companies – quite a significant research pool, I would say – and shows a direct correlation between how many blog pages are indexed by Google and the amount of blog traffic the site gets.

As a matter of fact, increasing your pages by 50-100 can bring as high as DOUBLE DIGIT blog traffic GROWTH!

The graph below shows that traffic generation jumps significantly once a site achieves 300+ indexed pages.

blog traffic generation chart

It’s quite evident that the more blog posts, which make up “pages” in your blog, you create and get indexed, the more blog traffic you’ll get, and the more business leads and money you will ultimately generate. As simple as that.

How do you generate a large number of indexed pages?

Start a blog and build page volume by posting regularly – every day or at least 3-4 times a week.
Work on your page optimization to maximize chances of having more of your pages including in Google’s index.

–On-Page Optimization: do your keywordresearch before you write a post; make sure you use proper title and description tags with your keywords included for each page. Use Scribe SEO to help you.

–Off-Page Optimization: one way link building is the key – this demonstrates your popularity to search engines. Use SEO SpyGlass to find the best links.

66% of the companies that HubSpot included in their research have a blog and they generated on average 67% more leads than companies without one.

67% more leads!

increase lead generation graph

Blog Traffic Generation Increases Once Blog Reaches 20+ Posts

The graph below shows that once you write 24-51 posts, your blog traffic generation starts to grow. That’s probably how long it takes to build a blog with enough pages to get indexed by Google and attract links from other sites as well as visitors.

blog traffic increase image

So, blogs can help marketers attract traffic and leads quickly, and marketers who are choosing not to start blogs are simply leaving the traffic for their competition.

Also, the higher post count showed 77% higher lead generation than the lower count.

There are 2 obvious conclusions here:

1. Blogging works to generate traffic and leads.
2. The more you blog, the more blog traffic you will generate.

So, Why Do You Need to Start a Blog?

It’s much easier to grow a number of Google indexed pages through a blog vs a static website – a very important factor in how much traffic you will eventually generate.
Blogs have a tremendous capacity to increase the number of keywordsyou have high search engine ranking for. The more keywords you rank for, the more traffic you get.
Link building opportunity: other sites are much more likely to link to you if you provide interesting and fresh content on a regular basis.
Recycle traffic: blogs give visitors a reason to come back again and again – it’s much less expensive to keep an existing customer than generate a new one!
Blogging is the best platform for you to generate traffic, then leads and build trust with them and later grow your business.

How Did This Blog Kick-Start My Business Success?

“It all sounds nice and good in theory, but did starting this blog changed YOUR business, Ana?”

Glad you asked!

I started this blog in September of 2009 and my original theme was Attraction Marketing.

This was my first ever attempt to write a blog, so needless to say, I know how scary it is to start one without having a slightest idea as to HOW to do anything.

My initial failures:

I had no clue what to write about or how to write.
I had no direction for my blog.
I had nothing to offer to my readers.
I had not clue what SEO was.
As I started learning more and more about blogging and generating blog traffic, I had to redo many things on my blog, which took a lot of time.

My initial successes:

I started this blog on the right platform – self-hosted WordPress.
I had enough sense to outsource some post writing until I figured out how to do it myself.
I used outsourcing resources like ODesk.com, GetAFreelancer.com to inexpensively do some tweaking with the plugins, themes, and such until I learned how to do it myself.
I read other blogs DAILY to see what they were doing, what ideas I could adapt on my blog, and what to avoid. Got some great inspiration this way!
I found the tools to help me make my blog better. The most important ones were Thesis theme and SEO Scribe plugin, which greatly increased my chances with high search engine ranking.

Here Is Where I Am Now:

About a month ago I made my blog much more topical: narrowed down my focus to Traffic Generation, as opposed to a little bit of everything.
I changed the look of my blog (added a new heading and an optin box); got a new domain name – once again, much more targeted one.
I wrote an ebook to offer to my readers (you are more than welcome to get your own copy by filling out my optin form). ***Side note: don’t be scared thinking that you need to write a book for your new blog. You don’t. As a matter of fact, just borrow mine – it comes with free giveaway rights, providing that you don’t change it in any way:).
I branded my new Twitter account and Facebook Fan Page to match my new blog look – all three are a continuation of each other. Go ahead, check them out!
Blog traffic? Since in the eyes of Google I started my blog twice (the second time was when I changed my domain name a month ago – actually even less than that), my Alexa traffic ranking (not that I pay too much attention to it) went from some 8 million to low 300,000 as of the writing of this post. In a matter of 3 weeks.
My lead generation? Started with a lead every other day or three days todozens on a daily basis. Plus my lead generation on my primary business website went up!

Marketing Takeaways:

START A BLOG TODAY!

Want to Get a Second Opinion?

I think it’s a great idea.

I am about to start a blog meme (What is a blog meme?) and tag the following bloggers, whose blogs you might not be reading but should, with the same question I just answered:

“How Did Your Blog Kick-Start Your Business Success?“

Jason Better, Chris Owen, Ty Tribble, Todd Falcone, Katie Freiling, Charles Heflin, Karen Newman, Peter Fuller.

If you are a blogger and would like to take part in this meme, feel free to answer the question in a post on your blog, link it back to this post, and tag more bloggers to do the same.

I look forward to compiling a post with the best answers to help people who are still struggling with whether their business needs a blog.

We need more people to learn about this post; so PLEASE retweet, share, and digg!

ana hoffman yournetbiz

If you like this post and think it would be valuable to your followers, share the ish out of it for me, would you? “

We told you it was legit. Anyhow, as we can see, leads aren’t this vague possibility of a perk that comes along with blogging. They’re a real bonus!

Want your stats to look like the ones in the graphs (the better ones of course…)? Contact us and start getting more business!

May 02 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business

How Your Blog Can Generate Leads

Dominate

We have talked about how blogging in general can have major benefits. But what are the specific perks? We will talk about one today… *Cue curious glance towards the image on the left*…leads!

According to Jeff Molander with Target Marketing, it is possible to increase leads from your blog in a few months. Making Social Sell is a nifty article explaining how. Check it out below.

“5 Steps to Generating Leads From Your Blog in Just a Few Months

By Jeff Molander | Posted on April 26, 2013

“How long should it take to start generating leads on my blog?” The answer will surprise you. In many cases we’re talking about just a few months.

Really?

Yes, really.

Here’s proof and five steps you can take right now to make it happen for you.

A Few Months? Really?
Ed Worthington of Action Business Systems sells office copiers and service contracts—faster and more often with his blog. It took him just a few months to get his first copier sales leads from his blog, Ed Worthington’s Baltimore Copier Buying Guide Opens in a new window . Prospects found his blog on Google and contacted him.

What’s his secret? Ed blogs in question-and-answer format. This helps him get found by clients searching for helpful advice. He also writes blog articles that give customers guidance-making sure they don’t get ripped off. He steers them clear of risks.

But being helpful, transparent, honest and all that jazz is not the key. Ed explains solutions to problems customers have in ways that create clarity AND active curiosity in him.

This creates response! (leads)

Todd Giannattasio , of Tresnic Media, challenged himself to write 50 articles in 25 days. His results? 1,000 percent increase in targeted traffic to his website and, within a few months, business leads.

In some cases, it can take as little as two days to get listed on page 1 of Google … if you play your cards right. And if you have a track record of posting relevant, actionable content in ways the Googlebot can understand.

[+] click to enlarge

Here’s an example of a video I uploaded, optimized for keywords and Google listed on page 1 in just two days.

How Can You Get Results Like This?
Let’s talk about what it means to “play your cards right” and start getting leads in a few months.

Here’s what to do:

First, I’ll be honest. I’m not getting leads from my Vimeo video listing that is 2 days old. But will I soon? Yes.

I know this based on my success with the below formula. Here’s what to do:

1. Do your homework: Understand how your prospects search on Google. I know many of my prospects are trying to start “using LinkedIn for sales leads.” Plus I see HubSpot has top placement here. This search term is important enough for them to be there, too.

2. Solve a problem. Ed Worthington knows people want to avoid getting ripped off when buying office copiers. And I know people need to find a way to start using LinkedIn for sales leads. Ed and I solve problems. This is essential for you to focus on when writing blog titles and articles. Right now, ask yourself: What pressing problem do I solve? What pain do I remove? What pleasure do I create? What freedom do I permit? What connection do I allow?

3. Create response. My videos and blog posts are structured to change the success rate of prospects. Materially changing prospects’ ability to move the needle was a game-changer for me. It will be for you too. Show prospects your “better way” and invite them to join you on a journey to teach them how to have that same success.

4. Keep it brief and ALWAYS make a call to action. My video (in the above example) is two minutes long for a reason. More importantly I go for it. I try to get a lead. Don’t be afraid to. You’re not selling-you’re helping prospects take a step toward solving their problem, learning a new skill or avoiding a risk. Make sure you don’t confuse your prospect’s strong desire to get some relief (for free) with their not wanting to be pitched what you sell. Short videos that scratch itches and contain calls-to-action (using URLs in the description and within the video) work. Period. Make sure all of your videos have calls to action.

5. Dominate. I’m currently dominating page 1 search results for this term. I’m not bragging. I’m saying, “Look … you can too!” Now, with this video, I have increased my chances of being discovered as an expert and engaged with. This leads me to … leads!

How long should it take to start generating leads on your blog? Yes, “it depends” but in many cases we’re talking about a few months. Good luck!”

Pretty helpful, right? If you are interested in getting more leads out of your blog, contact us!

May 01 / 2013
0

Articles, Blogging for Business

Why Your Business Needs a Blog

Put a Face on Your Business!

For the next four weeks we are going to share some vital information on blogs, newsletters, social media, and marketing analysis. If you aren’t using your website for inbound marketing, you are really missing out! Stick with us this May to learn how to boost your business like no other…we think you’ll like the results.

Carolina from CC Marketing Online wrote an awesome article, Why Your Website Needs a Business Blog, explaining the importance of this key marketing tool.

“This is a really common question from small business owners. A blog may seem like an unnecessary tool but it’s actually an important marketing asset. The simplest way to look at your business blog is that it is an easy-to-maintain way to spread your brand message to current and prospective clients on a regular basis. Your blog has greater reach than your email list or your website. It’s a consistent marketing tool that can be easily updated.

Your blog helps position you as an expert in your field. You can post content about your industry, how-to’s and other helpful material to show prospective clients that you know your business – and their needs – inside and out. You’ll quickly credibility with visitors to your site.

Your Business Blog and Social Media

Your business blog can go hand in hand with social media to market your business. Many business owners have gotten excited about setting up their Facebook or Twitter pages only to be faced with the challenge of then figuring out what to share on social media. With a business blog, you will have a regular supply of relevant, original information to share with your readers.

While it’s important to market your business with social media, you still need a “home base” for all of your social media and marketing activities. Some businesses have moved away from blogging in favor of other platforms, like Facebook. The drawback with that is that they don’t own their content when it’s posted to Facebook. With a blog, you have control over your content and one space to direct your social media traffic. Whenever you publish a new blog post, you can let your social media followers know and encourage them to visit your site.

What About Blog Content?

To get the best results from your business blog, you’ll need to update it regularly with good content. But don’t worry if you’re not a writer! You don’t have to think about content just in terms of text. You can use different media for your content, such as video demonstrations, podcasts, photos, slideshows and screencasts. Keep it interesting, and you’ll keep visitors coming back.

Updating your content regularly is important for your visitors and the search engines as well. Google and other search engines look for fresh content when ranking your page. As long as you’re using the right search engine terms within your content and updates, you’ll be able to attract search engine traffic.

Your blog puts a face on your business. Use your business’s blog to define your brand and position yourself as an expert in your industry. And don’t worry if you’re new – it gets easier with time!”

So here at NSquared we say try blogging, put a face on your business, and start reaping the hard core benefits.

Want to learn more about blogging on your site? Contact us today and we can get your inbound marketing campaign rolling!

Posts Categorized / Blogging for Business

Havasu Graphic Design-How to Get More Subscribers, Part III

“How to Convert Casual Blog Visitors Into Dedicated Subscribers

4) Create a Blog Subscription Landing Page

Tips for Optimizing Your Subscribe Landing Page