All posts by Chad Pollitt

About Chad Pollitt

Since 2002, Chad H. Pollitt has played an integral role in designing, developing, deploying, executing and tracking robust web marketing strategies for hundreds of companies and organizations and is an internet marketing expert. He holds a BS in Entrepreneurship from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, an Internet Marketing Masters Certification from the University of San Francisco's prestigious School of Business and Management and is a Certified HubSpot Partner. Chad is a decorated veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a former Army Commander and the Director of Marketing at Slingshot SEO, an enterprise Internet marketing agency and the largest provider of SEO services in the country. He authored "The Content Marketing Manifesto" in 2012. His other writings and articles have been published in dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites throughout the world. View all posts by Chad Pollitt →

The 7 Steps of the Inbound Digital Marketing Campaign Process

The business world is always trying to figure out how to use process to create scale. Makes sense, right? With good process comes scale, and with scale comes higher profitability. The same holds true in marketing. Properly deployed inbound marketing requires many different things to happen. Forgetting just one can ruin the whole campaign.

Strategically, most marketers understand what inbound marketing is, but many still fail to deploy it with much efficiency or process. Below are the seven steps that must occur in order to create scale and to maximize inbound marketing opportunity.

Inbound Marketing Operations from Chad Pollitt

1. The Offer

When it comes to inbound marketing, everything starts with the offer. However, not all offers are created equal. Most offers should be geared more towards top-of-the-funnel visitors who probably don’t know much about the business whose website they just visited.

These are the folks looking for information to help solve their own problems and represent the vast majority of most companies’ website visitors. Top-of-the-funnel offers can include free whitepapers, ebooks, guides, videos and checklists.

Middle-of-the-funnel website visitors are likely people who are already familiar with the brand. They represent a small contingent of traffic on most websites. They’ve likely downloaded top of the funnel offers in the past and have some level of trust or perceived value in the branded content. Middle of the funnel offers can include webinars, case studies, free samples, catalogs, FAQ sheets, brochures, etc.

Bottom-of-the-funnel visitors are the smallest group of visitors on most websites. These are people searching for who will solve their problem. This group is looking for free trials, demos, assessments, consultations, estimates and coupon offers.

2. Landing pages and CTAs

The offer represents a brand’s currency in the inbound marketing quid pro quo transaction. The call-to-action (CTA) and the landing page are a website’s checkout lane and cash register, respectively. Website visitors who convert do so by paying with their names, email addresses and whatever other form field information a brand includes on its landing page.

Without CTAs, website visitors will struggle to find a brand’s landing pages. Without landing page conversions, an inbound marketing campaign will struggle to show a return and proper nurturing will be impossible.

3. Lead nurturing

After a visitor converts on a landing page, they are now ready to be nurtured by receiving a series of emails that deliver prudent content over time. This automated marketing exercise should roughly mirror a typical sales cycle.

Lead nurturing can be deployed using many different channels. However, this example is for email lead nurturing only. Many of the same principles hold true across other channels. Lead nurturing empowers marketers to deliver the proper content to the appropriate person at the best time.

Marketers who master lead nurturing generate 50 percent more sales ready leads and do it at a 33 percent lower cost.

4. Email

The difference between the lead nurturing step and the email step is automation. In this step, marketers need to turn their attention towards their current contacts database. Upon the launch of a new offer, marketers should segment their email database with just the contacts they feel would appreciate receiving the offer. Open, click-through and conversion rates are much higher this way.

5. Earned and owned blogging

Most marketers are very familiar with owned blogging. It’s as simple as writing an article and publishing it on the brand’s blog. However, earned media has traditionally resided in the PR arena.

After a new offer is published behind a landing page, marketers should publish blog content that closely aligns with the topic of the offer. This makes click-throughs on the CTA and conversions on the landing page much more palatable for readers.

After that, marketers should put their PR hat on and reach out to other bloggers and journalists to see if they can guest post or get media coverage for the content represented in the offer.

6. Social media

This is perhaps the simplest of all seven steps. Promote the earned and owned articles as well as the offers themselves as part of the brand’s normal broadcast, sharing and engagement activities on social media. It’s important not to overdo it, however. Marketers should have a clear understanding of what’s acceptable and what’s taboo in the online communities they manage.

7. Analyze and adjust

Like all good processes, analysis and adjustment should occur regularly in order to make sure each step is optimized and working properly. This process also helps create fertile ground for testing which goes a long way in maximizing and taking advantage of online opportunity. While the individual contributors to each step of the process should analyze and adjust the steps they’re responsible for, ultimately, the campaign in its entirety is the responsibility of the department head.

The great thing about the inbound marketing campaign process is that it’s easily supported and executed with the right people and software in place. When the machine is fully operational, increasing output (traffic and conversions) is simply a matter of creating more offers. Digital Marketers will realize scale if they deploy the entire inbound marketing campaign process as described.

Image credit: Tambourine.com
Originally appearing by Chad Pollitt at http://www.business2community.com/marketing/7-steps-inbound-marketing-campaign-process-0701772

March 4, 2014

10 Digital Marketing Predictions for 2014

It’s that time again to publish digital marketing predictions for the new year. Some of the below predictions were easy to make, while others weren’t so obvious. It will take us over a year to know which predictions will be spot-on and which won’t, but in the meantime let’s prognosticate together.

1. Content promotion will have a seat at the table with content marketing.

At present, content promotion is an afterthought for many marketers. However, as the Internet continues to get bogged down with more branded content, marketers who want their content read will start to deploy more earned and paid distribution and promotion strategies. For more on this, see my 2013 post on Social Media Today.

2. Social ad spend will continue to increase as targeting gets even more granular.

With both Facebook and LinkedIn moving ads into its news feeds this year, the next logical step is to get even more granular with targeting. LinkedIn will launch an email cloning function similar to Facebook. Soon, marketers will be able to upload large lists of email addresses on both of the social networks to target people with similar attributes.

3. Enterprise SEO departments will start to merge with marketing communications departments.

There are three common silos in enterprise companies that impact digital relevance: SEO, MARCOM and PR. In 2014, these silos will start to break down and consolidation of some type will begin.

4. Bing will start to rollout encryption for search queries.

Now that Microsoft knows the NSA was breaking into its network, it’s just a matter of time before it follows Google’s lead by encrypting its network end to end. It currently only offers SSL encryption. It’s not the default.

5. Facebook’s younger demographic will continue to decline.

This could prove to be Facebook’s eventual death knell. It admits that adoption and use by younger teenagers is declining in favor of networks like Snapchat and Instagram.

6. Earning real media coverage will start to displace guest blogging as the preferred off-page SEO strategy.

Google’s Penguin algorithm and its subsequent updates make off-page SEO a riskier proposition for brands. Matt Cutts’ recent comments on guest blogging included some warnings that have many SEOs concerned.

7. Big Data use and adoption by digital marketers will continue to grow.

As marketing and sales technology continues to evolve the use and adoption of Big Data by marketers will grow. Consolidation of marketing and sales SaaS companies will continue in 2014, too.

8. SEO companies will innovate by either diversifying their offerings or becoming more specialized.

Good content plays such a crucial role in SEO today that yesterday’s tried and true “math men” approach to search will become less impactful. The ones that stick with yesterday’s status quo will struggle to keep their doors open.

9. Big brands will continue to experience growth in organic traffic at the expense of smaller brands.

Over the years Google has clearly communicated its desire to reward big brands with organic relevance. Its algorithm is getting better by the week at doing so. This trend will continue in 2014.

10. The use of cookies for tracking purposes will decline.

A new unique identifier will eventually replace the outdated cookie. Cookies do a poor job at tracking people’s propensity to jump devices. This new method will be designed specifically to address this.

So, what do you think? Do any of these predictions resonate with you? Do you disagree with any of them? Do you have some compelling predictions you’d like to share? Drop your thoughts below and let’s discuss.

No matter of the accuracy of the above, 2014 is going to be another great year for digital marketing!

Image credit: pasukaru76
This guest post originally posted at http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/10-digital-marketing-predictions-2014-0679020

content distribution, content marketing, social businessNovember 21, 2013

Great Content is Not Enough – Focus on Distribution

The title of this article is a direct quote from Jonathan Perelman of BuzzFeed and was featured in Ryan Skinner’s article, “Great Content Is Not Enough,” on the Forrester blog.

The article features takeaways from Ryan’s most recent Forrester report called “Put Distribution at the Heart of Content Marketing.” The report is a great read for today’s marketing and public relations professionals and explains why only 36 percent of marketers who use content feel they use it effectively.

The False Debate

This year has seen many thought leaders chime in on the quantity versus quality content argument. Marketers are trying to find the right balance. The more time they spend on quality, the less time they have for production. Seems like a fair concern, right?

Here’s the problem: 64 percent of content marketers feel they don’t use content effectively. That represents a whole lot of campaigns. It’s likely that some of them are focusing on quality while others are primarily focused on quantity. Neither approach guarantees results. However, the end goal is the same: publishing great content that gets shared on social media and ranks high in the search engines.

The amount of content being published online is growing exponentially and content marketers are partially to blame. In June of 2000, there were fewer than eight million websites. Today that number is greater than 750 million, according to Netcraft.com, and shows no signs of slowing down. This means that it will be harder and harder for marketers to cut through the noise in order to get their content read. Great content goes unread everyday on the Internet.

Google is helping to fuel this debate, too. With its Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird algorithm updates and the “Freshness” indexing update to Caffeine, Google is essentially telling marketers to publish as much content as possible and to make sure it’s extremely helpful to the people that read it if they want to do well on the search engine.

Unfortunately, the debate itself blinds content marketers to why their campaigns are performing poorly. Some may add another layer of editing and/or ideation in an attempt to boost the quality of their campaigns. Others may decide to ramp up production to get the results they’re lacking. Neither of the two tackles the real problem—lack of a distribution strategy.

The Right Debate

Rather than trying to produce more or better content, marketers should focus on their distribution plans. It should be part of their overall strategy. However, it’s likely just an afterthought for most of the 64 percent of marketers who feel they’re not using their content effectively. So rather than debating quality versus quantity, marketers should be debating on how much to spend on promotion.

Here are a few remarkable findings featured in Ryan Skinner’s article:

Brands can actually step down content production and step up distribution to get better results.
An ecosystem of vendors have cropped up to help marketers drive distribution of branded content.
The most effective promotions often come from doubling-down on past successes.
Better distribution improves content’s quality, as the feedback cycle accelerates.

By focusing on distribution using paid and earned channels, content marketers can hasten their traffic, conversions, subscribership and regular readership.

Paid Content Distribution

There are many services available to help marketers with their content distribution endeavors. Companies like Outbrain, Adblade, aNEWSme and OneSpot are all paid services that distribute content in a native or advertorial manner. These services can place a company’s content in front of millions of eyeballs.

Earned Content Distribution

Content marketers can take a page from traditional public relations by reaching out to the media in order to earn coverage which will assist with distribution. This article itself is earned media for Forrester’s blog post and report.

By proactively reaching out and pitching influencers, editors and journalists, marketers can get their content organically featured in some of the most populous corners of the Internet. This one example shows how earned media coverage from one popular online media outlet drove over 1,200 business leads in just a few weeks. The Inbound Marketer’s Guide to Earned Media takes a deep dive into how to use the media to help with content promotion.

If 2013 is the year of content marketing, let’s hope that 2014 will be the year of content promotion. Too many marketers are forgetting about promotion; instead, they believe the answers to their content marketing woes are to produce more and better content. As mentioned above, everyday great content goes unread. Without a promotion strategy like the ones previously described, the vast majority of content being created and published by the brands across this country will continue to go unread.

Image credit: Marc Falardeau
Originally published by Chad at business2community.com/content-marketing/content-king-distribution-queen-wears-pants.

chad pollitt, content distribution, content marketing, digital relevance, social sharingNovember 13, 2013

11 Steps to QUICKLY Capture Qualified B2B Leads Online

Guest post contributor Chad Pollitt of Digital Relevance dives into how B2B’s can generate more leads online.

Unfortunately, many B2B companies that rely on a steady flow of leads to power business development are forced to use a mix of both purchased leads and organically captured inbound leads.

Many would like to stop purchasing lead lists, but can’t because their inbound efforts do not produce enough qualified leads to maintain the sales department. Purchased lead lists aren’t as desirable because of their cost, effectiveness and cold temperature. Most companies that find themselves in this situation do so because they rely on a blog and hope strategy rather than actively and aggressively earning media online.

Brands that have their ebooks, guides and other advanced content featured and linked to by prudent online media outlets can see a quick, meaningful and significant spike in captured qualified leads. The example outlined in this earned media case study provided an 80+ percent increase in lead capture versus the prior month – more than 800 incremental leads in just two weeks.

Below are 11 simple steps to quickly and naturally grow your lead list.

Research

In order to strike the marketplace with confidence some basic research is required. However, more research will likely lead to greater confidence. Research helps eliminate guess work.

1. Assessing the Audience – helps determine what a qualified lead looks like. Traits and online behaviors should be noted.

2. Assessing the Content – is research that allows marketers to determine what problems their defined audience has and what content will help solve them best. In other words, what content would be perceived as highly valuable to the target audience.

3. Assessing Online Media Outlets – is a critical step because it identifies where the qualified leads hangout online and what type of content is published there. The websites identified during this research will be targeted for a guest article submission or a story pitch. Creative After research is complete, the creative steps to the process can be deployed. From design work to content development, great creative goes a long way in helping a media pitch be successful.

4. Advanced Content Production – is the creation of a problem-solving asset that usually takes the form of an ebook, guide, whitepaper, report, etc. With research complete knowing exactly what problem to solve and content to write should be easy.

5. Landing Page Content Production – is all about the value proposition of the advanced content. It should be short, bold and impactful.

6. Promotional Content Production – yields a guest article to be published on an online media outlet with an appropriate link to the landing page. Every media outlet targeted should have its own unique article written. Not all media outlets will publish a guest article; however, of the ones that don’t, many will write their own articles and feature the advanced content. Promotion With creative finished, pitching online media outlets becomes a little easier. If the resulting advanced content is truly unique, a contribution to the marketplace and solves problems for the audience of the media outlet it’s much harder for them to say no.

7. Define the Pitch Angles – so there’s a clear plan when conducting outreach to the media. Understanding the value proposition of the advanced content and its significance to the outlet’s audience should keystone the plan.

8. Editorial Outreach – is tough, but over time a marketer can develop a rich network full of journalists and editors to contact. For help getting started, use these delicious PR pitch tips from Ashley Halberstadt.

9. Social Media Influencer Outreach – can massively expose advanced content, too. Influencers have large followings and typically run a blog. One tweet or link from them can produce a cascade of target audience eyeballs. Conversion The conversion aspect of this list doesn’t necessarily have to occur after promotion. Landing pages and testing programs can begin production after the advanced content is created.

10. Design, Slice and Integrate Landing Page – this landing page will serve as the collection point for new leads driven by the earned media. Make sure to include appropriate form fields to assist in future nurturing, segmentation, scoring and qualification. Also, use a unique landing page tracking URL for each media outlet covering the advanced content.

11. Deploy appropriate A/B Versions of Landing Page – this step is optional. However, testing is highly advised. Testing different variation of the landing page can help increase conversion rates over time.

The above image shows the impact of earned media campaigns deployed every four weeks on lead acquisition. Campaign stacking can quickly capture many more leads than most company websites alone. By doing so, a company can rid themselves of the expense and heartache of purchasing cold, multi-owned lead lists. The earned media techniques described above allow companies to actively and prudently promote their content online, as opposed to using the blog and hope strategy.

For more comprehensive help deploying the strategy above download The Inbound Marketer’s Guide to Earned Media.

b2b, b2b lead capture, capture leads, capture leads online, grow qualified leads, lead captureSeptember 10, 2013