The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

When I used to sell print ads in a national sports publication I was always a proponent of advertorials when it related products or services needing additional explanation. Clients would be able to use a short "article" to detail solutions to problems or discuss certain issues relevant to the target audience. I thought this was great and usually my clients saw some great results.  

Mad Men Season 6 debuts this Sunday on AMC and over the past several seasons the show has done a great job of showing a society in change and how the advertising world has evolved to adjust to these shifts in society’s norms.  

When you think of what characteristics make a successful company, marketing campaign or team there are certain traits and factors that help to sort out the best and worst, the winners from the losers. This is true with inbound marketing and lead generation programs as well. 

One of the greatest and most well known benefits of blogging (aka Content Marketing) is the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) effects that you gain by publishing blog posts and premium content on a regular basis.

However, if you are not utilizing certain best practices and guides for authoring effective content your efforts will not be optimized, and it will take longer and more effort to achieve your desired results.

Are you on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter? Do you post articles or links with your comments or insights to share with your friends, business network or colleagues? If so, did you know you are a “Content Curator?”

It’s true. The term “Content Curation” has recently gained popularity in blogging and content marketing communities, and there are several mainstream websites that are receiving millions of visits per month by visitors looking for a single place to get information that’s organized in an easy-to-use format on specific topics. 

While you can easily measure site traffic, Twitter followers, and how you rank for keywords on Google, it’s a little more challenging to measure what I contend is one of the most important benefits of inbound marketing – thought leadership.

When I discuss inbound marketing with new clients and prospects they tend to focus on tangible items such as search engine optimization (SEO), keyword rankings and the effect that blogging has on generating leads and building their contact database. This is natural considering that inbound marketing projects sometimes get funded from monies reallocated from SEO consultants, email marketers and social media firms. These tangible results (or promise of results) make it easier for a CFO or Controller to sign off on, rather than the possibility of intangibles such as thought leadership.

The New Year has recently come and gone and we are moving fast into 2013 and trying to put 2012 behind us. If you were like many marketers and business owners, 2012 was full of uncertainty as the economy continued its slow growth rate, the fiscal cliff was looming and we were in an election year. This uncertainty impacted consumer confidence negatively and many businesses held off on capital investments and hiring. What does 2013 hold for us? What can we learn from this to help our sales and marketing strategies?

The New Year celebration is over and if you are like many salespeople you have set a few personal and professional goals for the upcoming year.

One New Year’s resolution that’s made by numerous business professionals around the world is to network more often and network more efficiently. One of the ways that business professionals can go about this is to utilize social networking sites like LinkedIn and Twitter, to build your personal brand and reputation.  

The guiding principle of Inbound Marketing is that by producing quality content you can attract and educate prospective clients about your service offerings, and generate qualified leads.  While most inbound marketing efforts focus solely on written blogs, many content marketers are turning to alternative means of publishing including video and audio podcasts.

One of the reasons why podcasting has become so popular with content marketers is that it’s easier than ever to create and distribute podcasts, and reach a large number of listeners.  Utilizing show notes or recaps from the podcasts, content marketers can also benefit from the effect that these show notes can have on search engine results.

With the passing of Zig Ziglar yesterday, we have truly lost one of the world’s greatest motivational speakers and sales coaches. Similar to other great motivational speakers like Anthony Robbins, Ziglar focused on motivating the masses, and his message reached most of his audience through his popular CDs and "Get Motivated" speaking tours. Recently he had branched out and started a series of webinars and eBooks that have become very popular with a younger audience.