B2B Lead Generation Articles on inbound marketing

• Guest Blogging: How to Approach It
  Hubspot | Jul 29, 2010 | Permalink
  When businesses give away something for free, they often get a lot in return from their fans or customers. One of the benefits of business blogging is that it establishes trust and thought-leadership. For example, even though HubSpot is an Internet Marketing software company, we share lots of free advice on our Internet Marketing Blog. Contributing a post to a blog other than yours is another way of giving away something small for free, but getting more in return. In this post, I'll share some practical tips on how to approach guest blogging, and how to get the most out of it.

  Benefits of Guest Blogging

  Reach New Audiences A post on your company blog will go out to all your subscribers. They might share it with their friends through social media, and you might gain some more i...
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• 10 Steps to Effective Online Marketing For Small Businesses
  Hubspot | Jul 29, 2010 | Permalink
  The following is a guest post by Peter Rastello, the founder of Inbound Market Link, an Inbound Marketing agency specializing in helping small and medium, B2B and B2C businesses to succeed on the internet. If you are a marketing professional in charge of your small/medium sized business’ (SMB) Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Inbound marketing, you are not alone. According to Marketing Sherpa, SMBs spend roughly 20% more on staff salaries to handle SEO & internet marketing  than do large sized businesses who tend to out-source this activity. For this reason, it is critical that SMB marketers focus carefully. Here are the abbreviated 10 steps to effective marketing online:
  The Importance of Google – with approximately 80% of all searches being conducted via Google, it is critica...
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• Thoughts on and Definition of Inbound Marketing (Listening)
  B2B Marketing Confidential | Jul 28, 2010 | Permalink
  Marketing is a word that has lost its meaning, and marketing is a discipline that has lost its way. When I say “marketing� to most people on the street, the first words that are mentioned are overwhelmingly negative. Marketing is thought of as “advertising�, “spam�, “pushy offers�, or “tricks�.Here's an ironic and unlikely hypothesis--marketing accountability has driven this trend. This is meant to be a controversial statement. Marketing accountability, otherwise known as “ROMI (return on marketing investment) measurement�, has forced the marketing function into a single role driven by a single metric—driving incremental, short-term revenue. Of course, this is an oversimplification. Many companies think “long-term� and do care about their long-term customer...
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• Latest B2B Marketing Trends From SiriusDecisions Summit 09
  Anything Goes Marketing | Jul 28, 2010 | Permalink
  If you’re looking for an eloquently written post on how B2B marketing has changed and recommendations on what you should do, you’ve come to the wrong page. What I have done is reviewed the tweets from the latest SiriusDecisions Summit 2009 and captured points that I thought were interesting and categorized them. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to go (not without trying!) but as you’ll see from the comments below, some great stats and thoughts have been captured by attendees via Twitter (yet another reason to use Twitter).At some point I would like to come back to each category and focus on them specifically but for now, here is some organized Twitter talk for y’all – enjoy it: Sales and Marketing Alignmentjblock: Only 32% of sales and marketing orgs work together to def...
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• 3 Strategies to Run an Effective Google AdWords Campaign
  Hubspot | Jul 27, 2010 | Permalink
  Paid search is a complement to organic search, not a replacement. At HubSpot, we always stress the importance of creating valuable content to strengthen presence on search engines and generate high-quality website traffic. The importance of organic search, however, does not imply that paid search is entirely valueless. Paid search may target audiences different from those drawn from organic search and thus maximize your reach to potential customers. In addition, paid search can serve as testing stone for keywords to optimize for organic search. If your website is new to search engine optimization and you don’t know which keywords will draw higher conversion rates, you can quickly test the popularity of different keyword phrases using Google AdWords campaign and later specialize in more ...
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• Top 5 Inbound Marketing Articles to Start the Week: Linkbait Techniques
  Hubspot | Jul 26, 2010 | Permalink
  Linkbaiting often gets a bad rap, yet creating great content that generates inbound links is hardly a questionable technique. Agreed? Our top inbound marketing article of the past week challenges the stereotype that linkbaiting is controversial and offers several great tips for creating link-worthy content.

  1. 15 Linkbait Techniques for SEO and Social Media 

  Author: Chris Lake on the Econsultancy Blog  The reason linkbaiting has become such a frowned-upon term is because some techniques used for linkbaiting include intentionally exaggerating opinion. Still, Chris points out that linkbaiting can be done honestly -- simply by creating quality content. He also emphasizes that, because of social media, creating linkbait content can not only drive inbound links but also retweets on ...
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• Checklist: How to Start a Business Blog
  Hubspot | Jul 23, 2010 | Permalink
  Excellent content leaves the reader with something new that they didn’t have before. People like to get something from blogs they read. You don’t have to be Shakespeare to have a good blog.  The fact is that web sites with a blog received 55% more visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages than those that didn’t have a blog. Businesses in particular can capitalize on this because businesses that blog experience 126% higher lead growth than non-blogging businesses. Can you really afford to miss this opportunity?

  1. CONTENT

  Remarkable Content – A mix of content is good. What’s remarkable? Anything relevant and useful, interesting, thought-provoking, controversial, and entertaining. Try things like current news, opinion, and media rich content. Note: this is not ...
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• What REALLY Matters in a Website Redesign
  Hubspot | Jul 23, 2010 | Permalink
   Do you run for the hills when it's time to bust out the wireframes and discuss redesigning your website? It's okay, not everyone was born to be a designer. Creating a new website can potentially be a long and arduous process - but it doesn't have to be! So many businesses get stuck on 'form OVER function' when trying to design or redesign a website. What's "under the hood" is just as important - if not more - when you main goal is turning your site visitors into customers. With that said, it's still important to have a site that makes a good first impression. For example, when we helped create Website Redesign LITE, stripping down the design process to the fundamentals was a key part of the plan. There are three fundamental aspects people should consider before engaging in a new web de...
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• Are Inbound Leads Really Leads? I Believe the Majority Are Not.
  Sales Lead Insights | Jun 14, 2010 | Permalink
  I think some of the information being touted by companies that have a stake in inbound marketing can be misleading. What I am talking about is the categorizing of all inbound inquiries as “leads.� If you'd like to learn more, please use my Contact Form, call me directly at 1-800-944-5553 or +1-401-294-7730, or check out the marketing consulting or speaking and training pages on my website.
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• Social Media gurus reveal secrets
  Revenue Journal | Feb 25, 2010 | Permalink
  I spent two days last week at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston, put on by Chris Brogan, author of Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust. There were some great speakers, and a number of vendors specializing in the Social Media/Web2.0/Marketing2.0/Video Marketing/InboundMarketing space. I thought it might be helpful to list these resources, in case it helps you with your own current revenue-growth efforts. I'll start with a couple of "big picture" takeaways:
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