Digital Strategy Blog

One of the biggest marketing buzz (pun totally intended) words right now is "marketing automation". Everyone is starting to realize the benefits of getting things done without having to think about it - plus the elimination of human error is a nice benefit as well. 

That's where one of HubSpot's most powerful tools comes into play - workflows. First, I want to start off by saying that I absolutely love workflows and love trying new things with workflows. We're all busy and any advantage we can give ourselves or anything that we can get off our plates is big.

The problem is that most HubSpot users that we meet aren't actually using HubSpot workflows to their full potential. So, let's take a look at six mistakes that many of you might be making with your workflows and how to correct them.

Welcome to wonderful world of HubSpot and Inbound Marketing! We are so happy to see you here, really!

HubSpot is a great tool for digital and inbound marketing, lead nurturing and of course customer relationship management. But with all these great tools in one compact software instance it can also be overwhelming! 

Automation is the way of the future in almost every industry. In sales and marketing, email automation is vital as it allows you to reach the masses, and become more efficient in your outreach. However, reaching the masses does you no good if your emails don't get responses or clicks. So as you create or amend your HubSpot sequences, here are a few tips to keep in mind.

You know when you search for a restaurant and google shares their address, website, hours and phone number? That's Google My Business. Small business owners have learned that claiming and customizing their Google My Business allows more foot traffic. So, why should medium, large or Fortune 100 companies take advantage of this? 

Education has been around a long time -- many centuries! For most of those centuries providers of education did little to no marketing of their school because there was no perceived need. People needed education, they had education, end of marketing plan. Ok, ok I realize it wasn't THAT simple. But compared to now it sure does seem like it was an easy scenario. Most schools only competed with other schools in their caliber or other schools in their region. With the dawn of digital marketing, educators now compete with schools across the world, with different delivery mediums, and vocational schools are even now competing with traditional schools. The competition pool extends far beyond other educators though. Now, the competition is simply everyone and everything.

As the world continues to evolve, so does the way that we use technology and websites. Consumers are less reliant on sales people than they've ever been and that's only going to become more and more true in the coming months and years. Consumers are doing their own research. They're making decisions before talking to your business. They're judging your solutions, products, services, etc. before you have the chance to sell them.

In fact, by 2020 it is estimated that 85% of consumers will engage with businesses without ever interacting with another human being [Gartner].

So how do you go about growing your business, increasing sales, and engaging your prospects if they don't actually talk to you?

Enter chatbots.

If you have a website, then chances are you want to be found online with a simple Google search. Or perhaps you have a pay-per-click campaign and you want your ads to be shown over a competitor's. Either way, you'll need to know which keywords to target in order to optimize your organic search results or ad campaign.

When I first heard the term "Smarketing", I automatically thought it meant smart marketing. I zoned out and thought about what smart marketing looked like. It was reaching the right people (your target customer), through the right communications or mediums (social media, email, phone calls, video, etc). Then after I let my mind wander for a minute, I realized what I was thinking about the entire time was actually just good ol' marketing.

If you’re like me, then you've already missed out on spring cleaning. At this point the only logical decision is to let the clutter linger until next spring. However, you likely don’t have the same luxury at work as you do at home, and there's still some spring cleaning to be had. That's exactly why you need to block out some time in your calendar and clean out your CRM.

Now that we’ve established why you need a press kit on your company’s website, we want to share HOW you can build it.

The integral part of a traditional public relations campaign is the media. Yes, you can utilize social and digital aspects in a PR campaign. However, if your goal is to garner earned media you’ll need to make sure media professionals are the target persona in the campaign’s plan. But how do you make your company attractive to those media professionals?