The Collaborative Growth Blog

Hey Pete, 
 
Thanks for referencing my article! I think my blogging efforts thus far turned into more connections with strategic partners because that's who the content would be beneficial to. If my content were geared more towards business issues, then I think I would attract more of my target clients. Is an idea I am going to take action on now in the new year and I'll certainly keep you posted! 
 
*my twitter handle is actually @tresnicmedia

No problem, Todd. Timely topic for me. Thanks for the fodder.  
 
And congrats on the success of your experiment!  
 
I agree that 'persona definition' and 'mapping an editorial calendar of topics to that persona' are critical. You'll also just get lots of peers/potential partners that convert no matter what you do, because they are seeking information. For example, back in 2008, HubSpot had zero interest in attracting agencies to convert on our website. Yet, the percentage of agencies converting was 15+%. Our proportion of SMBs to MBs to Enterprises has remained steady over the years too, even though our interest in seling to each of these markets has changed over time and our content has also changed with that interest.  
 
Did you read my "Why You're Failing at Inbound Marketing?" The title is more provocative than it should be. I'm not suggesting you're failing. But, I'd be curious about how many of those 9 things that you are doing? (I asked the same question in the forum if you're inclined to answer there instead.)  
 
 
PS. I changed your twitter handle in the article.

Pete and Todd, 
Good stuff. I implemented a similar program to Todd's at my current company. We outlined the results in a blog post: http://www.insightsquared.com/2012/11/how-we-jump-started-our-inbound-lead-generation/ 
 
There are a couple of considerations you'd need to take into account if you want to measure the impact on sales. First, what's your average sales cycle? You're not really going to see a significant impact on your sales if your sales cycle is 90 days long if you just finished a 25 day marketing program like Todd. 
 
With that in mind, you'd want to leverage a closed-loop reporting between leads, their sources and data in your CRM. HubSpot does a nice job with Sources and Conversion Assists in providing some of those answers (assuming you have a CRM connector in place). Similarly, other reporting providers can provide those types of answers too. 
 
I suspect that Todd isn't providing that kind of information because it is hard to get that kind of information out of Google Analytics :-P 
 
(disclosure: I worked at HubSpot for 2 years helping the team build analytics reports; I now work at InsightSquared, a different analytics and reporting company for SMBs)

Hey Pete, 
 
Just read that other article. I definitely need to implement more CTA's for sure. I currently have a free ebook download offer in the header of the website (just added it to the sidebar a couple of days ago) that is behind an email form. From the dozen or so leads, I followed up about a week later and didn't get a response.  
 
My plan moving forward is to  
1. Add CTA's like this at the bottom of my blog posts 
2. Create a handful of CTA's that are specific to the handful of topics that I blog about and have them mapped to those blog topics. 
 
I also think I'm going to commit to guest posting once a week on websites that have my target buyer persona as their main audience. I feel like in the field of online marketing, people don't know what they are looking for when they need our services. Most people think they need a web designer or to run ads, so they aren't necessarily looking in the right place to find us.

Good next steps, Todd. I agree that better conversion of your traffic into leads is the right incremental next step for you.  
 
I also agree that most people don't know what they need when it comes to marketing their business. It's hard to change their mind through marketing alone, though. I've found that a good sales process is the best way to do this. Specifically, one that has a thorough qualification process and a process designed to co-create a plan that they believe will help them achieve their business goals.

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