This past November, Google announced its new ranking algorithm that quickly crawls the Internet for fresh content on a much larger scale than ever before. Now you must be RECENT and RELEVANT to have a good chance of landing on Page 1 of Google search results…Google will find webpages that are minutes old!

With 75% of Google searchers never scrolling past the first page of results, your Internet Marketing elements can only build value for your company if they are kept current. You should review and update these elements frequently.

For more information go to: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/giving-you-fresher-more-recent-search.html

1.) 300 – 400 words is sufficient. Readers will be familiar with your topic so you can cut-to-the-chase and discuss solutions without explaining to much background.

2.) Conversational language. What would you tell someone who walked into your office and asked for your opinion on a topic? “Talk” to the readers.

3.) Post a blog article once every 10 days or so. This tells Google your blog is alive.

4.) Stay on message. Write about things that you are an experienced authority on.

These are a few basic guidelines that can help anyone get going with a blog.

Inbound Marketing has been seeping into our lives for some time and I believe its day has finally come. Inbound Marketing is the art and science of creating relevant information and placing it where people will go when looking to learn about a particular topic. People are COMING INTO the places where they believe authorities have deposited good information. Instead of driving a message into a broad spectrum of people with a sledgehammer, Inbound Marketing attracts highly qualified customers like a magnet.

COMPONENTS OF INBOUND MARKETING

Content. This is the make-it-or-break-it element of any Inbound Marketing campaign. If readers find your content relevant and useful they will contact you and tell their friends where they found you, if it is not then they will hate you for wasting their time. For this reason, you must apply a marketing journalism approach when developing Inbound Marketing content. Marketing journalism is the convergence of advertising copy writing and investigative journalism; this technique will produce the knowledge people are looking for and a structure favorable to search engines.

Search Engine Optimization. This makes it easy for people to find your content. It involves designing, building and maintaining your website and blog with the goal of being on page-one when someone searches for your product or service on Google.

Social Media. This amplifies your content by distributing it across the most highly trafficked social sites: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Social Media will also help to elevate your placement in the results of a Google search.

THE FACTS

Inbound Marketing costs 62% less per lead generated than Outbound Marketing. (Source: Hubspot, 2011)

“Our Company Has Acquired a Customer Through This Channel”: 57% Company Blog, 57% LinkedIn, 48% Facebook, 42% Twitter (Source: Hubspot State of Inbound Marketing Report, 2011)

46% of Daily Internet searches are for information on products or services. (Source: SRI, October 2010)

75% of Internet search users never scroll past the first page of their search results. (Source: Marketshare.Hitslink.com, October 2010)

Companies that blog have 434% more indexed web pages versus those that don’t. (Source: Hubspot, State of the Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010)

There is a direct correlation between the number of indexed web pages a company has and the number of leads a company gets from its Inbound Marketing campaign. More indexed web pages = More leads! (Source: Hubspot, State of the Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010)

Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors. (Source: Hubspot, 2010)

1 out of every 8 minutes spent online is spent on Facebook. (Source: Comscore, February 2010.)

Companies that use Twitter average double the amount of leads/month than those that do not. (Source: Hubspot, State of the Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010)

SUMMARY

Across all industries the Internet has fundamentally changed the way people find, share, compare, shop and connect. Inbound Marketing takes full advantage of these consumer practices and provides companies with a more cost effective way to generate qualified leads.

Face-to-face selling is the best way to get qualified leads and trade shows provide the ultimate arena for this. I recently ran into the President of an international company that we have done projects for and learned that he and his brother have significantly expanded their customer base; he told me “We did a lot of trade shows.”

While success stories like this are all around us, many companies still take a lackadaisical approach to trade show marketing. The following is an example of how a company made a huge/positive statement without spending a ton of money on a trade show booth; proof that it can be done.

This past spring a client bought booth space at a statewide industry conference. The client was very clear that they wanted to “make a statement” at the conference, yet we knew they didn’t have a huge budget for the project. In the end, by meeting with the people in charge of the conference and tapping into their resources we were able to construct a booth for our client that literally dwarfed the competitor’s displays – and it was done for a lot less money than was expected.

At the conference, the competition stood behind their six-foot tables with run-of-the-mill portable walls behind them. Our client displayed in a 12-foot high industrial looking workspace with a video that was rear-projected on glass welcoming guests at the entrance. STATEMENT MADE!

My advice to anyone charged with “making a statement” with a display booth is to start the planning process early and meet with the people in charge of the conference/trade show as soon as possible to find out how you can tap into the resources they are already working with. In addition to learning what resources are available, you will also learn things about the conference site that will expand your thinking about how your display will look and work.

I recently ran into a college friend whose family started a snack company in the 1970s. They package nuts into various size packs and sell them through grocery stores and C-stores. His company is being bought by a national food distributor and he will stay on as a Category Specialist. I said, “That’s impressive, I never met a Category Specialist before. What do they do?” He replied, “I’m going to help build the distributor’s line of snack food. I got a whole team of specialists.” I said, “Wow, a team! What do you tell your team?” He laughed and said, “Follow the Frito-Lay truck and do what they’re doing. They’re the best in the business.”

“Follow the Frito-Lay truck…” I’ve never heard it put so well.

A lot can be learned from studying the best brand in your category; especially when the best is a behemoth like Frito Lay. Brands like this have the resources to research every inch of the consumer’s buying process and know everything about what it takes to sell through all points of distribution. Look at their packaging, what they are featuring in their sales materials, find out if they give volume discounts and what the volume requirements are, ask which items are their best sellers, find out how often someone from the brand contacts your first-line customer. This information will provide excellent direction as to where your market is going. (The best-selling brand in any category usually impacts the direction that market is going.)

Am I suggesting that you rip-off the marketing tactics of you competition? Absolutely not. What I’m saying is that you must “Know What They Are Doing” in order to identify and take advantage of a market niche left open.

In the case of Frito Lay, they are currently launching a new line called Tostitos® Artisan Recipes®. A little research shows the word “Artisan” is now on products all over grocery stores. I wonder if my friend the Category Specialist will come out with a line of Artisan packaged nuts?

We are all sales people to some extent and good sales people are always curious about what the competition is doing. Ask the people you sell to what they like about the best selling brand in your category, what they hate, and what makes no difference to them. And then, if you need to know more… just follow they Frito Lay truck.

The 3 C’s Analysis has been a vital part of marketing plans ever since marketing plans were invented. This analysis should be done every year or two as it really helps avoid the “ready-fire-aim” approach to marketing.

The Category analysis should include big-picture trends and projections on pricing, product delivery, outsourcing, industry leader market shares, hot topics in your industry and the reasons why they are hot topics, global issues, government regulations, and other data that helps you identify the challenges and opportunities your brand will face in the near future. While much of this data can be found on the internet, you will sometimes need to buy trend tracking reports to find meaningful knowledge. Before you buy any report, ask them for a sample section so you can see the kind of information they provide.

The Competition analysis should focus on the industry leaders, as well as any up-and-coming brands. This analysis creates a detailed profile of each competitor as well as a profile your brand. In addition to a detailed analysis of each brand’s product lines, you should also include each brand’s advertising slogan, the promises they make to consumers, how and where they deliver on these promises, and the topics they are pushing in press releases. Once these profiles are done, create a spreadsheet with each competitor and your brand listed down the left column and the key attributes and promises listed across the top. Some of the key attributes might be geography covered, company owned vs. strategic alliance/franchise, pricing strategies, sales force vs. sales agents, ratio of senior executives to middle/lower level staff, return policy, ease of contacting, quality, size of organization, etc. You should be brutally honest with this analysis and rate each competitor as Better, Same, or Worse, when compared to your brand. To the extent possible, this analysis should piece together each competitor’s marketing strategy and provide a projection of where each competitor will be focusing during the near future. This will significantly help you know how to distinguish your brand as a cut above the competition.

The Consumer analysis should include (at the very least) demographic and psycho-graphic profiles of consumers in your industry. Please note that I did not say, “…profiles of your consumers…” Many brands make the big mistake of only profiling their current consumers and thinking, “Let’s just go find more of these…” Wrong! You already know how to sell to “these” consumers. To grow your business you need to identify new consumer segments and understand how to sell to them. The most important thing is to understand what consumers are thinking when they are looking to buy what you sell. Get your hands on every Consumer Mindset survey you can that shows the underlying reasons for consumers picking one brand over another. Industry trade associations are good sources for this kind of knowledge. If you have the resources conduct your own research.

The final pages of the 3 C’s analysis will be summaries and recommendations that will serve as the cornerstone for your marketing plan’s objectives, strategies and tactics. For perspective, a thorough analysis of the 3 C’s can take anywhere from three-weeks to three-months depending your industry.