Media Heaven on Earth Meets Internet Marketing

Garry Jones, President, Full Sail University.

Media Heaven on Earth
The Full Sail campus is located in Winter Park, FL and is comprised of 190 acres. There is almost one million square feet of sound stages, recording studios, computer animation labs, green screen rooms, motion capture suites and just about any type of environment to create a video, a movie, sound track, animated feature, a game, etc. There are 9,000 full time students studying in 30 degree programs. Some students are campus based and some are online. The students are all passionate, driven story tellers interested in learning the tools of their trade. They are matched with teachers similarly passionate about these tools and story telling. The result is a hip learning environment where people are super charged and where sparks fly in the creative process.  Full Sail attracts students from around the globe. Though, the main campus is in Winter Park, FL (near Orlando) there are sister schools in the Los Angeles Film School and the Los Angeles Recording school as well as outside Denver, at The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.

The Harvard of the Media and Entertainment Education
Garry recently attended the Grammy’s in L.A. along with 18 staff members. Over 100 Full Sail graduates participated in Grammy nominated projects. The Full Sail staff toured graduate’s studios, Warner Bros Pictures and visited with many Full Sail graduates catching up on their lives and careers. Full Sail has captured the attention of much media. Rolling Stone Magazine has named it one of the five best music programs in the U.S. Electronic Gaming Monthly, named its Gaming Degree one of the top 5 in the world. Shift Magazine named it the #3 new media school. Unleashed Magazine named it one of the top 5 film schools in the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine, also dubbed Full Sail one of the Schools That Rock, naming it one of the best music business departments in U.S. Full Sail’s recognition is growing because their graduates are performing great results in the entertainment and media industries.

Internet Marketing Curriculum
Full Sail launched an online Bachelors and Masters degree program in Internet Marketing in October 2008. The Masters program is a one year long program and the Bachelors degree is a two year program. Under the leadership of Carol Cox, the students get a well rounded education in Internet Marketing including, SEO, PPC, analytics, consumer behavior, branding, mobile advertising, social media and consumer behavior. Each course is four weeks long.  All the instructors are located on campus. They work very closely together to share information to keep the content current. They keep up to date through web news, webinars, podcasts, conferences, blogs and other online sources of updated content that can be added to the curriculum as needed.  Course content is sometimes up to the minute fresh….They don’t use any textbooks. They use trade publications and other relevant industry articles. The Internet Marketing curriculum continues to grow as they attract students from varying backgrounds including entrepreneurs, corporate marketing departments and stay at home moms starting a new business or working in a family business.

Full Sail Marketing Strategy
The university market is a very competitive market with over 4500 colleges plus 3000 proprietary colleges in the U.S. Full Sail does a fine job of articulating their core message and value proposition in all their marketing communications. Under the leadership of Andrew Solberg, Full Sail’s marketing strategy includes many of the Internet marketing techniques they teach including SEO, PPC, display ads and email marketing. Additionally they use traditional marketing including outdoor, television and print. All their traditional media includes links to their website or a landing page for tracking purposes. When someone visits the Full Sail website they quickly get exposed to the student experience and the breadth of their educational credentials. Not surprisingly, their website provides a very rich media experience that is noticeably different than most college websites. A visit to their website allows you to experience a tour of their campus.

A Launch Box Moment
On the first day of classes at Full Sail each new student experiences The Launch Box. Full Sail accelerates their learning curve by putting a mobile, digital studio in their hands on day one. The Launch Box includes a MacBook Pro with all applicable software for each student’s degree program. From day one the student has tutorials to get set up and running. The famous moment on the first day of class is when the instructor says to the class “Welcome to the the next chapter of the rest of your life. Turn on your launch boxes!” At the same moment everyone powers up their customized MacBook Pro and they end up in wild applause.

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast interview with Garry Jones, Carol Cox and Andrew Solberg of Full Sail University and encourage you to listen to it (above or from iTunes). The next time you watch the Grammy’s or the Oscars, know that Full Sail graduates had a hand in some of those works of art as well as many others in private industry that may not appear in awards but nonetheless have a powerful impact in their respective market segment.

The education provided by Full Sail University allows students to earn a living in current economic conditions whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee in media, entertainment, gaming and Internet marketing fields.

As a Floridian, I’m proud to know Full Sail University is based in my home state. As a digital citizen and marketer I’m thrilled to see the economic impact of this fine institution of specialized learning and their commitment to students through tools, technology and devoted instructors.

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Business

Kim Albee on B2B content marketing.

Kim Albee is founder and President of Genoo, a marketing automation software company serving B2B SMB companies mostly in the U.S. Genoo provides tools to build micro-sites, do lead nurturing, lead tracking and it integrates with Salesforce.com. I met Kim on LinkedIn when I was looking for case studies for my book. This podcast interview is an update to that case study.

Kim launched her Genoo product in June 2008 in beta. It became available to the public in Sept 2009. As an entrepreneur launching a new marketing automation software product with no marketing budget Kim got very creative. She started playing with social media tools, most notably LinkedIn. She joined some relevant groups in 2008. But, at that time LinkedIn didn’t offer the “discussion” feature, so there was no ability to create conversations in groups.

Kim wondered how she could find and engage people interested in B2B marketing. She didn’t find any B2B groups on LinkedIn, so she created a B2B Online Marketing group and invited others to join it. But, without a discussion feature, the group didn’t have much value. Then, Kim set up a free forum for conversations on B2B marketing. But, no one joined. By now, Kim was getting frustrated by her limited ability to engage with other B2B marketers online.  Then, it happened!  LinkedIn started offering discussions in groups and everything changed.

Kim created a LinkedIn group called B2B Online Marketing and she also created a dedicated website which shares and re-purposes content from the group.  BTW, do a Google search for “b2b online marketing” and you’ll find this website in the first 5 search results. Kim started discussions in this group on relevant topics such as lead generation, SEO, how to create great content, how to create and use micro-sites and other topics of interest to B2B marketers. Initially, Kim emailed the members of the group each time a new discussion was started using the email feature in Genoo. The group has grown to over 3,200 members and it’s still growing, fostering great conversations among B2B marketers.

Kim blazed a new trail with this approach. She was willing to experiment with something new. She was very persistent and resourceful. Her leadership is apparent as she created a new group and has been willing to maintain it with active interaction with the group members.

Some B2B Online Marketers Still Skeptical
Kim hears the same objection I often hear from B2B marketers. Many are simply skeptical that marketing online is effective for narrowly defined B2B niches. The truth is that most people search online when they need to find a product or service. B2B marketers must ask themselves, how do their websites perform in searches pertaining to their niche? Many B2B websites are just a “blow-horn” for their products and services with no meaningful calls to action, or limited opportunity to engage (if any). The reality is most B2B prospects want to get to know a business before they call them or fill out a form. They want to check you out first. And, the way to allow them to check you out is through great content!

Niche Marketers Take Notice
I’ve written before in my blog and in my book how marketers in any market segment should draw a circle with two concentric circles around it to define their target market. The smallest circle is the bulls-eye target market. The two outer circles contain demographics who reach and influence the bullseye. Marketers should target each of these groups through great content.

No matter what business you’re in you have a USP (unique selling proposition). There is  a story there. Share your story. Your target market may not currently be on Twitter or Facebook every day, but when you share your content there you will get better search results. SEO is all about the long-tail now. If you don’t start now, you won’t be there when your audience arrives.

Email Challenge
Kim met someone online who challenged her to write one email every day for 30 days on a relevant marketing topic. He offered to subscribe to her email list, in return for Kim subscribing to his. Kim agreed and sent her first email to her list of about 5000 people, many of whom she did not email frequently. She had low expectations but was willing to experiment. Remember, Kim is not afraid to take some risk. She started her first email with a cheesy email heading: “Hello Fellow Marketers.” She explained her plan to send one email each day for 30 days on a marketing topic. To her surprise, she got 218 people to sign up to get an email from Kim everyday for 30 days on relevant B2B marketing topics. After her final email, she did a survey which received a 38% open rate. Kim took some risk with this 30 day email challenge. And, the results were impressive.

Content Marketing & Relationship Building
I couldn’t have scripted this interview any better. In my book, Marketing 2.0 I boil everything down to having a terrific content marketing strategy and building relationships online. Kim’s daily email was great content, not to mention her B2B Online Marketing group on LinkedIn. Kim built relationships with her 218 subscribers through a personal response to replies she received which built relationships with her subscribers. After the 30 day experiment Kim got several new customers without ever once making a pitch for Genoo. Her great content was her marketing. How measurable is that?! Very!

Kim is a  terrific example of Marketing 2.0 in action. She is willing to take risks. She succeeds a lot more than she fails. But, if we don’t have some failures along the way we’re probably not trying hard enough. Kim is proof positive of this.

To engage with Kim (and why wouldn’t you want to), here are several ways:

Genoo Marketing Automation Software

Kim Albee on LinkdeIn

Kim Albee on Twitter

Marketing Automation Resources

If Kim Albee’s content marketing strategy story inspires you, please add your thoughts below.

Boston Tweetups Equal Joselin Mane

Podcast interview with Joselin Mane. Joselin is a former IBMer who runs an internet marketing consultancy and a Tweetup service called Boston Tweetups. Joselin is a colorful character. You’ll enjoy meeting him in this blog post and the video links below.

I met Joselin at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Foxboro, MA in October where we connected very quickly. We both run inbound marketing agencies and we talked shop for a while and hit it off. I knew Joselin would be a great guest on my podcast show because he has so many interesting stories about Tweetups and SEO and social media marketing. Don’t limit yourself to reading this blog post. You should listen to the full podcast interview (above).

Tweetups

What is a Tweetup? The term evolved from meetups where people organized and promoted events around a topic. A Tweetup is an event that originates from people who organized it through Twitter.  A common example is when people who attend a conference get together in social settings and the event is totally organized and promoted organically through Twitter.

Why Should Marketers Consider Organizing a Tweetup?

Tweetups are very social. Most marketers can get huge value by bringing people together and engaging and networking. It’s common knowledge that we do business with people we like and trust. And, meeting face to face speeds up the relationship and trust building process.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s a B2B or B2B company, the face to face aspect of making connections is very powerful. Tweetups are all about building relationships. While a Tweetup can have a specific purpose such a cause or product announcement, it can also just be purely social. Joselin uses Eventbrite to announce, organize and offer advice on Tweetups through his Boston Tweetup service.

Joseline’s Top 3 Do’s and Don’ts for Tweetup Organizers

Do’s

1. Decide on the theme first.
2. Attend other people’s Tweetups.
3. Document everything.

Don’t’s

1. Don’t forget the human element.
2. Don’t change too many things once promotion begins.
3. Don’t neglect the details and be sure to plan ahead.

Boston Tweetup

Joselin missed an event last year and decided to research events and when he did he found nine event calendars. Joselin then consolidated them into one calendar for Boston social media and marketing events. He set up a blog and shared this calendar and started Tweeting about the calendar. Eventually Joselin’s calendar became recognized as the authority for Boston social media events.  One thing Joselin did consistently was promote other people’s events asking for nothing in return. Joselin has proved to be a thought leader in Boston through his social media event calendar.

Next Boston Tweetup December 3rd

Joselin’s website for Boston Tweetup includes a video summary of each Boston Tweetup event.  He also offers a poll for each Tweetup where people can vote on the Tweetup events and post comments. Joseline’s unselfish leadership on social media calendaring has resulted in new opportunities including attending Celtics games in box seats as well as meeting people from NBC which resulted in an assignment. Who knows, we may see Joseline one morning on NBC’s Today Show talking about his Tweetups. I wouldn’t be surprised. I also won’t be surprised to hear that his big Tweetup on December 3rd will be the biggest of the year!

Video for SEO

Joselin helps clients with SEO using best practices and a video strategy. Google is always interested in presenting recent content in its search results. He points out that videos get indexed very rapidly by search engines. But, search engines can not index the actual content in a video. Rather, they index the meta data in videos. Google has to index videos rapidly because there are so many videos being uploaded every day.  Joselin creates customized video for clients and uploads them to about 150 social media profiles. Each video is tagged and uploaded to each of these social media sites. He uses geo tagging to appeal to Google’s Universal Search features.  Joselin interviews his client and captures their value proposition in a short video and propagates it across about 150 social sites. He releases videos on dozens of video sites and on various social sites like StumbleUpon, Delicious and Twine. One entry can result in dozens of entries in search results.

SEO Has Become CSO

Joselin’s approach is an example of my sentiment that SEO is becoming CSO (content search optimization). By creating a broad content footprint that gets spread across the web very methodically marketers can create strong reach and great search results. Joselin likens this to a mall and the stores in the mall. A storefront exists inside a mall. The social sites such as Facebooks and YouTube are malls. People enter these malls and can see the content in each “mall.”

Cool Glasses

I asked Joselin about the cool glasses he wears. He said an optometrist friend of his recommended these glasses. They have no legs. Rather they use a short spring that rests on each temple. I’m sure it took a little getting used to but these glasses are very interesting. I’ve never seen anyone else wearing these glasses. They are symbolic of Joselin’s unique personality. He’s one of a kind!

Below is my interview with Joselin at the Inbound Marketing Summit in October. Enjoy…

As I See It…. Ready, Aim, Fire

Bernie Borges

How many times have you heard the expression “ready, fire, aim?” This cliché is used often in business and sports when making reference to a plan that gets executed without much planning. It’s an oxymoron. Either a plan is a plan or it’s not a plan. You might as well admit that not having a plan is just winging it.

Unfortunately, many marketers have taken a “ready, fire, aim” approach to inbound marketing. Whether it’s not doing extensive keyword or competitive research for SEO, or not planning out effective PPC campaigns and ad groups, a lack of planning is sure to negatively impact your results.

We find this is especially true and prevalent in social media marketing. With such growth in popularity in social media platforms including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, many marketers have jumped in with one or both feet without a plan.

Ask yourself these questions: What is your content strategy? What is your content hub on the web? Does your content strategy have C-Level support? Are enough resources allocated to your content strategy? How are you measuring results?

I’ll introduce another very common expression – the 80/20 rule. I passionately suggest that 80% of a marketer’s success on social media is directly correlated to the strategy, in particular the content strategy. And, 20% is correlated to the web communication channels you choose to implement your content strategy.

Did you notice I just renamed blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn “communication channels?” Don’t allow that to get past you. If you buy into this 80/20 rule of planning versus execution, then you quickly understand that the social media channels you use are your communication channels.  You understand the importance of developing a strategy – a content strategy.

In developing your content strategy, focus on your target audience. Don’t limit your target to your most immediate target demographics. Expand that circle to include demographics that interact with your target audience. Depending on your industry, that may include analysts, consultants, resellers, etc. The point is to not limit your target too narrowly. Your content should engage people in your industry in a compelling way.

What happens when you don’t plan and you just implement (ready, fire, aim)? You might have some success. If you do, consider yourself lucky. But, you have a much greater chance of making some costly mistakes. You may attract the wrong people. You may not be prepared to direct people to the right place in your communication and create a wrong impression. For example, if most of your communications point people back to your website’s home page, and it’s not well designed to engage visitors in a way that is consistent with your social media strategy, you’ve blown it. Would you throw a party without preparing for the guests?

Marketers should avoid the temptation to dive into social media without a plan that includes research. Just as in creating any business plan, conducting research to determine whom you’re targeting, where they are, and what topics are of interest to them is crucial. Then, determining a content strategy that addresses your audience is the next step. Then, and only then, are you ready to use the popular social media tools to implement your social media marketing plan. Ready, aim, fire!

Tips for Bulls-Eye Blogging: Getting Your Content Found

Dianna Kersey: Information Architect

Since the beginning of time, humans have been searching for ways to communicate.  From sign language to cave drawings to paintings, humans have been trying to tell their stories.

In fact, we humans have protected, copied and preserved the written word since its inception.  From Dead Sea scrolls to naval captain’s logs to newspapers to the blogs written by the world’s 70 million bloggers, people have been (and continue to be) obsessed with communicating what is important to them.

So, you say you are clean out of parchment, your hammer and chisel are dull and you don’t own a printing press?  How about we move into the 21st century and we learn how to communicate with not only other humans, but search engines as well, so those other humans can find the words on your blog that express what’s important to you.

So let’s start with the basics….

Loading the Rifle:  What is a Blog?  Here is a short video to explain:

There are 8 types of blogs that can be a part of how you choose to communicate what’s important to you.

Here are examples of each kind:

1.    Linkblog – Social bookmarking, such as del.icio.us
2.    Moblog – sending pictures from a camera phone or mobile device, e.g., Flickr
3.    Podcast – audio recording in MP3 through RSS feed – iTunes
4.    Videoblog/Vlog – video recording in MP4 through RSS feed – YouTube
5.    Microblog – short text message, popular with mobile users, e.g., Twitter
6.    Miniblog/reblog – content is mostly from a third party in a post versus creating original material,  e.g., stumbleupon
7.    Liveblog – covers a live event, such as a sporting event or press conference.  Engadget is an example.
8.    Blog – A collection that can include all of the above.

Once you choose which format is inspiring to you, it’s time to bring it to life and be found on the social web. When choosing a blog strategy, first you will want to choose a blog platform (such as WordPress or Blogger) and create a themed look and feel appropriate to what you want to talk about and what you feel will appeal to the type of audience interested in your same topic.

Now that you have a blog hosted and up and running…. now what?  You need great content. Period.  Your content must be interesting, informative, educational, or inspiring in a way that compels your readers to engage with you.  Most important, be creative and have fun with the voice of who you are.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz has written a great article that details 21 tactics to increase blog traffic, but we are going to cover just a few highlights.

Talking to Humans: Taking Aim at Your Target

Here are a few items to help keep your content fun, inviting and engaging to your audience:
-    Great content – first and foremost.
-    Link to your sources and data information. Don’t be afraid to link to resources valuable to your readers.
-    Invite guest bloggers to be featured on your blog.
-    Interview influential people who address the topic covered by your blog.
-    Use rich media – e.g., video, charts, images, graphs, podcasts, bullets, etc….
-    Use community sharing software such as ShareThis or Tweetmeme to allow visitors to share your content easily with others through Twitter and Facebook and many other bookmarking  platforms throughout the web.

Talking to Search Engines: Bulls-eye

Okay, so you have great content. Check.  Now it’s time to be found in the search engines and share your content with readers.  You have to socially broaden your footprint on the web and get your content out to communities that are interested in what you have to say.

How do you do that?

Here are some simple tips to help search engines identify and “read” your content and properly index it so that a person searching on the topic that you posted about can find your blog. By using these plug-ins (or many others like these), you can help tell the search engines what your posts are about.

-    Use a SEF (search engine friendly) plug-in, such as headspace2, to insert title tags, smart URLs and descriptions into your posts to help search engines index the posts for the right keywords.
-    Tag your content with keywords relevant to what that post is about.
-    Make it easy for someone to subscribe to you with RSS feeds or subscribe with email.
-    Use an interactive WYSWYG word processing plug-in, such as Tiny MCE Advanced, which allows you include images, video and a myriad of other functionality to make your content engaging.

You’ll be loaded for bear if do your research, choose the type of blog that’s right for what you want to communicate, educate yourself on your chosen topic, learn from other bloggers, create a community by broadening your web footprint, and use the 21st century tools to help humans using search engines find your blog content when they search on the keywords that are most relevant to it.

Good luck!

Interview with Brian Halligan, Co-Author of Inbound Marketing

Podcast interview with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

I interviewed Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot to discuss his new book, Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, which Brian co-authored with his co-founder and fellow MIT alumnus Dharmesh Shah. First, I asked Brian to briefly describe HubSpot. In full disclosure, Find and Convert is a HubSpot partner.

HubSpot is an inbound marketing software company which is about three years old now. HubSpot helps companies transform their marketing strategy from the ground up through a methodology which is implemented and managed on their web-based software platform. HubSpot software helps marketers run their organic search engine optimization, PPC and social media strategies with analytics and lead intelligence to measure results.

Inbound Marketing – The Book

Brian describes his new book as a cookbook for marketers that provides the transformation from old style marketing to the new inbound marketing. The book describes how marketing has changed over the past 5 years. In his book, Brian and Dharmesh outline the five steps in becoming an inbound marketing centric business.

1. Create lots of content
2. Optimize that content for Google and social media
3. Spread that content
4. Measure results
5. Convert website visitors to leads and customers

A New Mindset

If you’ve read my blog before or listened to any of my recent podcasts you’ve heard me say that the new marketing is a mindset. It’s a new way of thinking. It’s all about creating content and building relationships through your content. As Brian points out in his book, marketers need to make the shift away from interruptive marketing to inbound marketing. He says the modern marketer is half a traditional marketer and half a content creator. When a marketer creates “remarkable” content, other content producers will remark about your content. In fact others will link to your content. And, links are the currency of the web which will produce traffic to your website. In fact, Brian says the modern marketer’s content becomes a magnet to their website hub.

Not Your Father’s Marketing

I asked Brian how marketers can embrace inbound marketing? In response he takes us on a trip down memory lane (you may not be old enough to remember his story). He says that marketing hasn’t changed much over the last 50 years. But, during the past 5 years it’s changed a lot and will continue to change in the coming years. In 1965 television ads worked exceptionally well. People had to watch the ads. They had no choice. In fact, they had few choices in their media consumption. Today, consumers can block out ads across most media platforms including television, radio. email and web browsers. In short, consumers can filter out most advertiser’s interruptions.

Are You Worthy?

In years past any company with a healthy budget could advertise and sell products. Even bad products could be marketed and sold with a big budget.  Today, the friction is far less for great ideas with less money required to get the word out. Good products with good positioning and happy customers can sell by spreading the word around the web. Bad products (unworthy) can’t hide anywhere in the current marketing paradigm.

Measuring Results

A common question asked by marketers about inbound marketing is how do you measure results? Not surprisingly, Brian and Dharmesh devoted a chapter to this question. Their advice is to look at campaigns using the funnel metaphor. Study the flow of visitors to your website hub, the conversion to leads, to opportunities and ultimately to customers. Study all the web channels that filled your funnel and see which ones have produced the best results in the funnel. The ones that work best you should  “double down” on and nix or revise the ones that don’t.

What’s Remarkable Content?

I asked Brian how does a widget manufacturer produce remarkable content? One of the case studies in his book is Whole Foods. They are a natural and organic grocery food retailer. As part of their inbound marketing strategy one of their buyers blogs during his trips to France.  He blogs about his meals during his trips, and the cheeses he bought on his trips. He cites another example of a fishing rod manufacturer who creates lots of content about the industry, not about the product. The magic sauce of inbound marketing is not to sell your product through your content. He says marketers should turn their website into a magnet about your industry to attract people. Invite customers, analysts and others interested in industry topics to engage with your content. Allow your content to become a magnet and engage people in ways that can convert into leads. It’s a very common mistake when marketers jump on the web and create content all about their products.  Marketers can be very successful inbound marketers if they talk about industry issues and watch others link to your content.

Watch Your Competition

Marketers can easily watch their competitors in the age of social media and tools like Google Alerts. HubSpot created a series of tools under the Grader brand. Marketers can use Website Grader to measure their own websites, as well as their competitors side by side.  Other Grader tools such as Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader allow marketers to watch their competitors on a frequent basis with a lot of transparency. Marketers can watch the competitive trends. Startups can be very aggressive by watching competitors closely.

Why Now?

In this chapter Brian and Dharmesh stress that marketers should not wait to embrace inbound marketing.  The barriers to entry to beat the top content producers are high. The longer a marketer waits to become an inbound marketer the harder it will be to catch up. All the great content that marketers produce will generate links back to their website hub. The content becomes a permanent asset on the web.

Marketing Crystal Ball

I asked Brian what’s in his marketing crystal ball? To answer this question, he referenced the large old style marketers like P&G who have allocated big money to advertising over the past 50 years. This approach to marketing built Madison Ave. Brian predicts that in the next 50 years inbound marketing will flip Madison Ave on its head. Advertisers have fewer media outlets to turn to because consumers are watching less television and reading less print. Instead consumers are going online using Google, social media and blogs. Brian predicts the next group of companies that will become Google-size success stories are those who engage on the web through remarkable content. The next Coke will not be an interruptive marketer. The next Coke will be content producers with a great product. I partially disagree. I think this will happen in the next 5 or 10 years. It won’t take 50 years. Just look at Zappos.

Two Real World Examples

I asked Brian for two great examples of inbound marketing. But, I required that he describe his own company as one of them. You may think this was a softball. But, the truth is that HubSpot is a poster child for inbound marketing. I asked Brian to describe their success with HubSpot TV. He described the early days of HubSpot before the product launched.  He was actively blogging about inbound marketing several times each week.  He rapidly adopted the mindset of constantly creating content. So, it started even before HubSpot launched version one of their software product. This approach eventually led to the development of their free Grader products (great content) described earlier. One day one of HubSpot’s product developers, Karen Rubin, suggested starting a TV show! Though some people initially laughed, she convinced V.P. Marketing Mike Volpe, himself a prolific content producer. The rest is history. HubSpot TV is more than one year old now with a loyal and sizable audience. It airs live every Friday at 4pm eastern and is syndicated in iTunes ranking #1 for inbound marketing and other related terms. Shameless plug: I was a guest on HubSpot TV in August. I had a blast!

The other success story Brian told is from his book about a company called 37Signals. I learned that this company has long provided inspiration to HubSpot. They are a small software company out of Chicago with really great products. They created a wildly successful blog called Signal Versus Noise. This blog was once a top 100 blog. They also created a book, and their reputation spread very quickly. I pointed out (unknown to Brian) that we are a 37Signals customer. We use their Basecamp product in our client engagements. And, we learned about Basecamp through word of mouth. Proof positive that inbound marketing is for real.

At the end of my interview with Brian he said something which I believe is profound in its simplicity and its reality. Brian said “Inbound Marketing is not rocket science. The sooner you do it the better off you are!”

Brian, I couldn’t agree with you more…I wish you and Dharmesh success with your new book, Inbound Marketing which is available everywhere.

Internet & Technology Summit Tampa Makes Impression

Yesterday I participated in the first Internet & Technology Summit in my backyard – Tampa, FL. I travel around the country to similar events so it was a pleasure to drive 30 minutes from my home to a quality event.

The producer of the this event is David Glass, a local entrepreneur. David is a well known publisher of print and online media outlets which focus on business and technology in Florida. The event began at 7:30 am and ran until almost 1pm. In addition to a great line up of speakers, more than twenty sponsors exhibited. About 300 people attended the event made up of small and mid-size business executives and a healthy showing of local entrepreneurs. Here are some highlights of the event.

Brent Britton (attorney 2.0) kicked off and hosted the event, serving as the emcee throughout the morning.  Brent is uniquely gifted in this role. His wit and style of humor combined with his edgy and geeky intellect make him a model emcee for technology events. Brent’s introductory remarks provided anticipation for the content, learning experience and networking opportunities for the enthusiastic attendees. He kept the pace moving and the audience engaged.

Mike Volpe, V.P. of Inbound Marketing at HubSpot was the keynote speaker. Mike set the tone for the event with an inspiring presentation which challenges the status quo of marketing. Below is an excerpt of Mike’s keynote.

Internet & Technology Summit Video 2 from Tampa Bay CEO Magazine on Vimeo.

There were three topical tracks with panel based speakers on each topic. The tracks were:

Social Media/Search Marketing
Speakers: Bernie Borges, Kevin Hourigan, Guy Hagen

Mobile & Web Application Development Trends
Speakers: Jody Haneke, Greg Schmitzer, Bradley Blanken

Rich Media & Application Development Innovations
Jennifer Bakunas, Heidi Kempf, Greg Wilson, Sean Carey

Quote of the day: “I’d rather be a developer acting like a marketing guy than a marketing guy acting like a developer.” Greg Wilson, Adobe Systems

Clearly, there is a hunger in our community for technology business conferences to discuss the impact of innovative technologies, best practices and ideas among business leaders and entrepreneurs. I think we’ll see more events like this in Tampa in the future.

If you attended, please add your comments below.

Justin Levy New Media Results in Motion

Justin Levy is General Manager and partner at Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse in Northampton, MA. Justin is focused on the marketing side of the business.  His partner Joseph M. Gionfriddo is responsible for day to day responsibilities and is the head chef.

Although Caminito Argentinian Steakhouse is a local restaurant with a single location in western Massachusetts all marketing is global on the web but with a local target.

A True Marketing 2.0 Strategy.

I wrote a case study about Caminito Steakhouse in my Marketing 2.0 book. When Justin became a partner in Caminito in March 2008 80% of the marketing budget was in local print advertising. Justin cut most of it. Instead, Justin built the website which includes Google maps with directions, lunch menus, dinner menus, appetizers, wine specials, and more.  Justin made sure the website used SEO best practices in order to be found for desirable keywords such as  “traditional steakhouse.”

Justin also developed a blog separate from the restaurant website. The blog is called Prime Cuts. The blog is a thought leader with cooking tips, grilling tips and behind the scenes cooking insights filled with steakhouse expertise.

Caminito’s video strategy includes Prime Cuts TV which is tied into the blog and also shared on video channels like YouTube. They feature mostly Joe with weekly videos about real life examples of hard to explain cooking topics. They are mostly things that are fun and a little more difficult to do such as how to sharpen knives, how to judge the temperature on a grill, etc. You’ll have to check it out for a fun learning culinary experience.

Justin is very active on Twitter, through @justinlevy plus Facebook with feeds to FriendFeed, Google shared items and basically anywhere it can be fed. Flickr, Vimeo, Blip.TV, YouTube. Anywhere they can find a footprint on the web.

Broad Footprint

Old style marketing for a single location restaurant would be marketing to people within a 50 mile radius. But, Justin’s Marketing 2.0 strategy reaches people around the world.  For example, I can recommend Caminito Steakhouse to my network even though I’m located in Florida. My network includes people in Boston and around the world. This can have a multiplier effect.

Results in Motion

Before Justin joined Caminito Steakhouse they were averaging 5% to 10% decreases in sales each month. The last 18 months since Justin has set his Marketing 2.0 strategy through social media, sales have consistently increased 20% or more each month over the same month in the previous year. During the summer of 2009 they’ve been up 70% over the same months in the previous year.

Content Marketing Strategy

Caminito Steakhouse has created a broad footprint on the web with a lot of great content. They spread and share it. The result is great SEO rankings, in some cases ranking even higher than national steakhouse chains like Ruth’s Crist and Longhorn. “This stuff works!”

New Marketing Labs

Justin is also General Manager of New Marketing Labs. Their Inbound Marketing Summit is coming up  October 7/8 in Boston. This IMS is the third event of the year with previous events in San Francisco and Dallas in April and May respectively.  IMS has many rock star speakers including Chris Brogan and Brian Solis. I’ll also be on a panel on innovative marketing programs using new media strategies. Check out the Inbound Marketing Summit.

Hope to see you at IMS in Boston. Maybe we can have a steak together at Caminito Steakhouse.

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Content Marketing: “This stuff really works!”

Last week I had a quick trip to Cambridge, MA for a guest appearance on HubSpot TV. During my visit I sat down with Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer of Tippingpoint Labs. A conversation with Andrew (Drew) is never boring. The location we picked was a Starbucks around the corner from the MIT campus which added to the charm of the experience.

Tippingpoint Labs is a “digital content creation” shop.

“We create valuable content: video, audio, presentations, photos, podcasts, wiki contributions, articles, stories. We believe in perpetual production: creating high-quality, relevant content to a well-defined audience. We move quickly to adjust and refine your content to build a relationship with your audience.”

I asked Drew to give me an example of how they create content and “move the needle” for their clients. He gave the example of a client called Breville, an Australian maker of kitchen products including coffee makers and blenders. This is a crowded market segment with aggressive advertisers.

Drew and I share a passion for “marketing 2.0” strategies which are anchored in engaging your target community through great content and building authentic relationships. Drew explained how Tippingpoint Labs engaged influential blogs such as the Coffee Geek and Single Serve Coffee to become aware of Breville and to review their products.

Product Launch Through the Blogosphere

When Breville launches new products or announces strategic partnerships such as the one with Keurig in March 2007 pertaining to a new single serve gourmet home brewer, influential blogs such as Single Serve Coffee are engaged. These blogs cover the coffee market and enjoy a loyal following. Essentially, these blogs are the new media and channel of communication for manufacturers like Breville.

Online Brand Value

Drew points out that to measure the value of branded content on the web, Tippingpoint Labs tracks popularity of brands online and correlates them to sales figures using tools such as Google Insights. As relevant topics grow in popularity such as “coffee makers” so does the popularity of Breville, and the sales figures reflect it. Below is a chart showing how the conversation between Breville and Delonghi brand espresso machines is shaping the market.

Below is a short interview with Drew. We closed this interview with a profound statement: “This stuff really works!”

SEO and Content Marketing

This podcast is about the relationship between content marketing and SEO. I begin with a short story about SEO.

In March, I met Andrew Davis, Chief Strategy Officer at Tipping Point Labs at a custom publishing conference in Miami. Our first conversation was a little confrontational. Drew let me know that he wasn’t a big fan of SEO. Drew felt that if you have great content, you don’t need to do any SEO. It will take care of itself, he said! So we got into a spirited discussion about SEO. The main point I made to Drew is that content is indeed very important for SEO results. But, so are other factors most notably having a website that is technically friendly to search engines. I also pointed out the importance of eliminating search engine penalties to enjoy the SEO value of great content. Drew and I have since become friends. Look for Drew as a guest on a future podcast. I have been on one of his podcasts discussing the future of search marketing.

Content Marketing Rock Stars

Junta42: In a recent podcast interview with Joe Pulizzi, CEO of Junta42, we discussed the importance of content marketing. We didn’t have time for many examples. So, the rest of this blog post and this podcast is devoted to examples of a few content marketing rock stars and their impact on SEO and business results. Junta42 is a small company focused on content marketing. Joe Pulizzi’s blog, Twitter and Facebook accounts spread his content worldwide. The result is Junta42 is helping to create global awareness of content marketing as a strategic marketing discipline. And Junta42 is fast becoming known as a premier provider of content marketing vendor matching services to businesses worldwide who need to find a vendor partner to create custom content.

HubSpot: A terrific example of content marketing! They produce so much interesting content it’s hard to do anything in Internet marketing without finding them. HubSpot has a great blog about “Inbound Marketing.”  They produce a weekly video podcast called HubSpot TV which is streamed live every Friday at 4pm Eastern and is also syndicated through iTunes. They produce frequent webinars that educate marketers about inbound marketing. They are prolific users of Twitter. Their executives speak regularly at conferences and they re-purpose those slides on Slideshare as well as share them through Twitter. And, they produce comical video content that entertains us. HubSpot has set the bar very high for the rest of us in content marketing. The result for HubSpot is very high search engine rankings for keywords such as “Internet marketing software” and “inbound marketing.” The bottom line result is their growth curve looks like a company during the hyper growth years of 1995 to 2000. The “R” word doesn’t exist in their vocabulary.

Indium Corp. Rick Short is Marcom director at Indium, a 75 year old manufacturer of solder paste sold to manufacturers of electronic assembly equipment. Rick is a visionary content marketer. Indium has 10 blogs staffed by 14 engineers around technical aspects of solder paste. Their content marketing strategy reaches engineers around the world through their blogs and videos which educate and also entertain.  Indium is in a very niche industry. Their content marketing results are impressive and include increased awareness in their industry, a healthy flow of sales leads and other outstanding branding opportunities all of which Rick measures meticulously. Rick is also quick to point out that their website as well as individual blog posts rank very high in search engines for many relevant keyword phrases.

Blendtec: A manufacturer of commercial blenders. Blendtec is a well known content marketing example. Their consumer blender was not well known however. But, George Wright, their marketing director came up with the brilliant idea to have their CEO blend very interesting objects. They created a website called Will it Blend? The spectacle of blending various objects ranging from marbles to wooden rakes has been a success beyond their wildest expectations. Probably the most famous (viral) video was when they blended an iPhone.  Their website has received millions of visits due to the viral explosion of their video content. The impact on their sales has been outstanding to the tune of a 700% increase! They’ve also received a lot of mainstream media coverage. Blendtec is creating an entertaining experience through their video content which is producing outstanding SEO results and bottom line results.

Chris Griffith, a realtor in Bonita Springs, FL. Chris has cornered her market. She has three websites, a blog, she writes a column in her local newspaper and she’s very active on Twitter and Facebook.  Chris creates great content about her community which makes her the go-to person in Bonita Springs. The result for Chris is great SEO rankings for phrases like “realtor Bonita Springs Florida.”  Anyone who is looking for real estate in Bonita Springs, FL will find her online. The result is her real estate sales in 2008 were up over 2007 during a time when real estate sales were down year over year across the U.S.

BatchBlue: A web based CRM software product. They focus on building relationships. It’s in their company and product culture. Their blog is all about helping people using their software product with useful tips and strategies designed to make us more productive using BatchBlue CRM software. Their entire focus is providing great informational and educational content.  They also have multiple Twitter accounts where they publish content and build online relationships. BatchBlue is growing very nicely as a result of their content strategy.

WOMbeat! A website that offers word of mouth networking for local businesses and consumers currently limited to Tampa, FL but with expansion plans.  The founders refer to WOMbeat as LinkedIn meets YellowPages. Local consumers can find local businesses through word of mouth referrals on their site. The service is free to consumers. WOMbeat is very active in their blog. They also actively use Twitter and Facebook to produce informative content that spreads and creates (you guessed it) word of mouth advertising for their young company.

Louis Page Inc. Duncan Page runs the company started by his grandfather 116 years ago. They sell meshed wiring and fencing products. They operate out of a small modest office and a small warehouse outside of Boston. Duncan has recently created a blog called The Fence Post.  This blog offers tips and advice on how to use fencing products. The awareness of his blog has resulted in an 850% increase in leads in the time it’s been online. Duncan was recently interviewed by a Boston based television news station where among other comments he said: “This stuff really works.” Yes, Duncan it really does work! Thanks for being such a great example.

All of the examples of content marketing above are case studies in my Marketing 2.0 book except the Duncan Page example. I wish I had learned about him while I was writing my book. In each example above a content marketing strategy is driving SEO results which increases the chance of being found on the web through great content and a broad footprint on the web.

Maybe I can write about your content marketing success someday. Add your comments below about your content marketing/SEO strategy.

Bernie Borges
@berniebay

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