Monthly Archives: December 2016

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Episode 64: Preparing for 2017, Solve for the Problem, Artificial Intelligence

Welcome to Episode 64 of HubShots!

Welcome to HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers who use HubSpot hosted by Ian Jacob from Search and Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Recorded: Monday 19 December 2016 | Published: Friday 23 December 2016

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Year

Thinking back on 2016 and some of the key inbound learnings:

Craig’s biggest a-ha moment: Kipp Bodnar’s approach to: “solve for the problem”

https://hubshots.com/episode-40/

It has fundamentally changed our approach to everything – in business and in personal activities as well

Ian’s biggest a-ha moment: I have to say that “solve for the problem” has been it.  But to give you something different I would say “be informed, read up and deep dive into topics” as that is how you learn and become a practitioner.

Shot 2: HubSpot Feature/Tip of the Year

Craig’s favourite new items in 2016:

• Lead Flows – quickest wins we’ve had lately
• New user interface refresh – user experience is a priority for HubSpot

Ian’s favourite new feature in 2016:

• HubSpot Projects

Paul’s (in Craig’s office) favourite feature:

• Progressive form fills

Shot 3: Pro Tip (Reminder) of the Week

Analysing content in HubSpot:

1. Check your Page Performance report (Under Reports menu)
2. Check the SEO optimisation of each page (start with your top 10 most popular pages)
3. Update the content for latest findings and accuracy
4. Update internal links to increase relevance and freshness
5. Update ‘Last Updated’ date  
6. Add a tailored Lead Flow slide-in onto the page
7. Check the CTA results for the page and if needed create a variation to test the CTA against to increase click through and conversion

Shot 4: Opinion(s) of the Week

A look at:

• What has changed in 2016
• What won’t change in 2017
• How to combine the two – with examples
• Thinking about Artificial Intelligence

Planning for the new year should include some analysis of what is new, but also what isn’t changing.

What has changed in 2016

First, a look at 2016 in terms of marketing and what is changing:

https://contently.com/strategist/2016/12/16/biggest-marketing-storylines-2016/

• Digital advertising overtook TV advertising for the first time.
• Facebook dominates attention and marketing dollars
• VR and AR take off (eg Pokemon Go)
• AI starts changing from science fiction to reality
• Enterprises are all changing to be media companies as part of the offering
• Martech gets huge – Microsoft purchased LinkedIn
• Privacy, fake news, data collection, Native advertising guidelines

What ISN’T going to change in 2017

Thinking about what ISN’T going to change in the next few years.

Recall Jeff Bezos’ advice:

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/966699-i-very-frequently-get-the-question-what-s-going-to-change 

“I very frequently get the question: ‘What’s going to change in the next 10 years?’ And that is a very interesting question; it’s a very common one. I almost never get the question: ‘What’s not going to change in the next 10 years?’ And I submit to you that that second question is actually the more important of the two — because you can build a business strategy around the things that are stable in time. … [I]n our retail business, we know that customers want low prices, and I know that’s going to be true 10 years from now. They want fast delivery; they want vast selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future 10 years from now where a customer comes up and says, ‘Jeff I love Amazon; I just wish the prices were a little higher,’ [or] ‘I love Amazon; I just wish you’d deliver a little more slowly.’ Impossible. And so the effort we put into those things, spinning those things up, we know the energy we put into it today will still be paying off dividends for our customers 10 years from now. When you have something that you know is true, even over the long term, you can afford to put a lot of energy into it.” ― Jeff Bezos

What things will remain constant for your customers?:

• Prospects and customers want help and value and answers and solutions
• They want quick response (consider whether you should invest in chat tools and the costs of having them managed)
• They want trusted advisors, they want to feel safe
• They want to feel like individuals, so focus on anything that will help to personalise their experience and make them feel special
• They want a good user experience

Planning for 2017

Here’s two quick thoughts for ways you can combine the two:

• Consider how you can use AI technology to help you automate providing a personalised user experience that makes your visitor/prospect/customer feel special.
• Consider how you can use chat technology to help you provide help and value quicker – it’s interesting that many companies will not consider chat tools because they don’t have the budget to resource them with a person answering chat sessions… and yet they will happily spend big on driving traffic to the site…

Artificial Intelligence

Paul Roetzer discusses AI in marketing:

http://content.inbound.com/content/origins-of-the-marketing-intelligence-engine 

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6-fQznbowY?rel=0&w=640&h=360]

Makes you realise why Dharmesh is pushing Growthbot so hard – it is just the beginning…

If you have an Enterprise license of HubSpot you have Predictive Lead Scoring – where HubSpot uses its own models to lead score contacts

Quill Engage will use natural language to describe your Google Analytics – sign up for a free account to give it a spin:

https://www.narrativescience.com/quill-engage 

https://www.quillengage.com/ 

IBM Watson is driving AI based products:

https://www.ibm.com/watson/ 

Eg their Customer Support tool is an example of where the industry is heading:

https://www.ibm.com/marketplace/cloud/cognitive-customer-engagement/au/en-au#product-header-top 

Shot 5: HubShots Resource of the Year

Interviews with 7 Marketing Experts from HubSpot Sydney

60+ pages of marketing guidance from seven of Australia’s most successful marketers.

https://hubshots.com/the-hubspot-interviews 

We will be updating this in 2017 with more information!

Shot 6: Quote of the Week

“Christmas is doing a little something extra for someone.”

~ Charles M. Schulz

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Episode 63: George B Thomas, HubSpot CTA Variation Groups, and Lead Flows yet again

Welcome to Episode 63 of HubShots!

Welcome to HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers who use HubSpot hosted by Ian Jacob from Search and Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Recorded: Wednesday 14 December 2016 | Published: Friday 16 December 2016

Join our HubShots WhatsApp Group: https://hubshots.com/whatsapp

Join our HubShots Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1608138752821574/

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Week

George B Thomas’ session is now available:

http://content.inbound.com/content/how-to-be-world-class-at-hubspot-in-60-days

The sound is really bad, so listen to The Sales Lion’s version while have the Inbound visuals – for the slides:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zu39A32uusQ

Ian’s takeaways from that session:

• Do all your certifications! http://academy.hubspot.com/
• Stay organised in the tool.
• Tools we use really matter like:
  • Projects
  • Social media
  • Workflows
  • Smart content – use it!
• Read all HubSpot blogs so you know what is going on.
• In your content here are some types you can create:
  • Talk about best. Eg. Best family 7 seaters in the market.
  • Talk about versus. Eg. Mazda CX9 vs the Kia Sorento.
  • Talk about problems.  Eg. Problems with a Toyota Kluger..

Shot 2: HubSpot Feature/Tip of the Week

CTA Test Variations Groups

https://knowledge.hubspot.com/cta-user-guide-v2/how-to-create-an-a-b-variation-test-for-calls-to-action

Craig is hoping: that CTAs will have an option to be used in Lead Flows (ie not just as an embed script) in the future

Shot 3: Challenge of the Week

Taking time away from your role to think reflect on what you have achieved this year and then put a plan in place for next year.

A great place to start is to go back and write down all the wins you had this year.  Start with your marketing calendar as a starting point.

Next think about that and be grateful of what you have achieved through the year.

Then put together a goal and plan for next year.

Here is a great post from Seth Godin > http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/12/two-kinds-of-winning.html

Shot 4: HubSpot Follow Up Item of the Week

More on Lead Flows

Starting to get more success with Lead Flows.

Some revised tips

• Aim to create one Lead Flow per page (or page topic)
• naming convention is important: Page description – Offer description

• Target the content on the particular page, aiming for a message that resonates with the content showing around half way through

Craig likes:

• Slide in on 50% scroll
• Aim for 2% conversion rate as a starting point

Shot 5: Opinion(s) of the Week

https://inbound.org/article/who-hurts-marketing-more-gary-vaynerchuk-or-out-of-touch-professors

https://www.marketingweek.com/2016/12/07/ritson-who-hurts-marketing-more/

https://research.hubspot.com/reports/artificial-intelligence-and-you

Shot 6: Pro Tip of the Week

http://www.seerinteractive.com/blog/400-placements-block-google-display-network/

(from a year ago)

https://www.act-on.com/blog/10-tips-on-how-to-write-better-ppc-ad-copy/

Shot 7: Resource of the Week

How B2B Marketers Should Use LinkedIn Sponsored InMail:

http://blog.adstage.io/2016/12/13/b2b-marketers-linkedin-sponsored-inmail/

Good resource for account-based marketing (ABM)

A follow on from:

http://blog.adstage.io/2016/12/01/successful-linkedin-sponsored-inmails/

http://tidings.com/vault/predictions-2017-part-one.html

Shot 8: Chrome Extension of the Week

1Password – https://1password.com/

Have a look at 1Password Team.  Designed to secure your entire team or business. Have full control over who has access to your most important information.

Shot 9: Mobile App of the Week

Google My Business – to manage business listings on Google

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.apps.vega&hl=en

Apple: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/google-my-business/id853371601?mt=8

Shot 10: Podcast of the Week

Marketing School – Episode #133, Neil and Eric list the 7 things to assess when your content marketing is failing.

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/eric-siu/marketing-school-with-neil-patel-eric-siu/e/7-things-to-assess-when-your-content-is-failing-ep-133-48502982

Shot 11: Quote of the Week

Two kinds of winning

Some can only win when others lose.

Others seek to win by helping others succeed.

One of these approaches scales far better than the other.

http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2016/12/two-kinds-of-winning.html

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Episode 62: Charles Duhigg gems, More Lead Flows, Avoiding Irrational Decisions, Content Audits

Welcome to Episode 62 of HubShots!

Welcome to HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers who use HubSpot hosted by Ian Jacob from Search and Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Recorded: Monday 05 December 2016 | Published: Thursday 08 December 2016

Join our HubShots WhatsApp Group: https://hubshots.com/whatsapp

Join our HubShots Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1608138752821574/

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Week

Keynote: Charles Duhigg

Some highlights:

People

• Think differently
• Most productive people think more deeply

Some learnings from Qantas flight 32 check the story. QF32 By Richard De Crespigny

• People tell them stories on what to expect.
• Cognitive tunnel.
• Can we pivot so we put ourselves back in charge.
• He constantly challenges mental models.

Craig’s notes re Charles’s presentation (view the comments):

Listening to Charles Duhigg #INBOUND16

A photo posted by Craig Bailey (@craigjamesbailey) on Nov 10, 2016 at 6:19am PST

Looking forward to Charles’s Duhigg’s presentation being made available on the Inbound site.

BTW the Alec Baldwin keynote is now available:

http://content.inbound.com/content/alec-baldwin-keynote

Also: Rosalia Cefalu’s session is now available: http://content.inbound.com/content/youre-starting-a-sales-enablement-team-now-what

Shot 2: HubSpot Feature/Tip of the Week

More on Lead Flows

Aiming for extreme targeting

Name your Lead Flows based on the offer they have, and then add to a few pages.

Each time you post a new blog post add the blog post URL to the appropriate Lead Flow.

Simplicity is the key: test lots of different Lead Flows. Note that they are simple eg can’t A/B test them or even report on them eg can’t do breakdowns based on device or anything like that

Keep testing: eg on one site we’ve had more than 30 Lead Flow submits in the last week (ie almost as many as the normal leads collected) whilst on another site they’ve had very little response. Which indicates that the way the offer is expressed needs further testing.

Keep testing your Lead Flows to improve conversion rates.

Gotcha: can’t have LeadIn plugin and the WordPress plugin both active on a site or else the Lead Flows won’t work.

Shot 3: Challenge of the Week

How to stop people you work with making on the fly irrational decisions.

How do you solve it?

• Have a brief when doing work.  This way you can tie it back to the brief in a logical way.
• Complete your personas
• Do a content audit and tie it to a content plan

Shot 4: Stat of the Week

From think with Google – A Marketer’s Guide to Holiday Supershoppers

Tip: Check your Apple Maps listing > https://mapsconnect.apple.com/. You will need an apple id.

Shot 5: Opinion(s) of the Week

https://mention.com/blog/inbound-2016-marketing-experts/

Super useful post, tons of good insights, a range of formats. Has been shared a lot.

Aside: Has zero comments.

Opinion: We’re taking comments off some sites, and also removing social sharing in some cases. If they aren’t social proof they can sometimes be social disproofs.

Shot 6: Pro Tip of the Week

Perform an end of year content audit.

https://blog.hubspot.com/customers/long-term-content-marketing

Goal: with the content audit it will  help you identify all of the marketing assets that you have at your disposal and potentially identify gaps or opportunities in your content strategy.

You’ll be able to identify which resources that you already have, which could save you hours of content creation time in the future. No use in duplicating your efforts.

Pro Tip: how you organize and name your files will have a big impact on your ability to find those files down the road and confidently understand what content they contain. When uploading or reviewing assets in your HubSpot file manager, you should be consistent and descriptive in naming and organizing files so that it’s obvious where to find specific data and what the files contain.

“Think of your long-term content plan like a savings account. If your goal is to retire someday, then you need a plan, and you need to be consistent with contributions. The more consistent you are and the better you are with contributions, the more you will get on your return on investment. But in order to retire, you need to be consistent month-after-month, otherwise, you’ll miss your goals and the ability to retire.”

Shot 7: Resource of the Week

http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/12/01/b2b-content-marketing

What is B2B marketing, how does it differ from B2C, how to plan content, how to promote it. Plus a bunch of excellent examples.

Shot 8: Chrome Extension of the Week

Chrome Tab Manager: http://www.gettoby.com/

Group your projects together into Tab Groups

Shot 9: Mobile App of the Week

Soon: http://www.soonforever.co/

Bucket list of Movies, Books, TV Shows, Podcasts, etc

Speaking of podcasts…

Shot 10: Podcast of the Week

Marketing School again!

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/marketing-school-digital-marketing/id1138869817?mt=2

Shot 11: Quote of the Week

“By developing a habit of telling ourselves stories about what’s going on around us, we learn to sharpen where our attention goes.”

― Charles Duhigg, Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business

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Episode 61: Cold Calling, Lead Flows, VR Trends, Long Landing Pages

Welcome to Episode 61 of HubShots!

Welcome to HubShots, the podcast for marketing managers who use HubSpot hosted by Ian Jacob from Search and Be Found and Craig Bailey from XEN Systems.

Recorded: Monday 28 November 2016 | Published: Thursday 01 December 2016

Shot 1: Inbound Thought of the Week

1: Highlights from Brian Halligan:

http://content.inbound.com/content/brian-halligan-and-dharmesh-shah-keynote

Is cold calling really dead? Or is it just called something else these days…?

Should outbound calls be part of your sales and marketing process?

2: A look at Gary Vee’s trip to #Inbound16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdGgBp4hoTk

Notice how he engages with people before the keynote – he’s very involved.

3: ecommerce interviews coming up

BTW stay tuned for our upcoming interviews with HubSpot marketers: all about ecommerce – look out for them over the Holiday period!

Shot 2: HubSpot Feature/Tip of the Week

Tip 1: Lead Flows

HubSpot Marketing Free:

http://www.hubspot.com/products/marketing/free

Lead Flows:

http://www.hubspot.com/product-updates/introducing-lead-flows-for-hubspot-marketing

Gotcha: if you have LeadIn installed as well as HubSpot then the Lead Flows won’t show. So disable LeadIn on your WordPress site if you already have HubSpot installed.

Good to test with sites. Simple to setup and target, and easy to add to smart lists.

In smart lists, include Form Submits from forms that have Lead Flow names.

Contacts who fill out Lead Flows can be enrolled in Workflows, just like any other form submit.

Interesting that Lead Flows are under the Content menu, and not under Contacts – I thought they’d be more like Forms (which is under Contacts). HubSpot considers it a Call to Action, rather than just a Form.

Tip 2: Excluding your IP address in HubSpot

Go to Report Settings and scroll to the bottom:

Shot 3: Challenge of the Week

Don’t be rude to telemarketers – they are people just like you and me

Craig has been getting lots of calls about domain purchases, from overseas web design companies, asking whether I want the site to informational or educational… etc. Despite repeated requests to take me off their list I keep getting called.

On Friday I got a call late in the day from a number I didn’t recognise. They launched into a cheery ‘how was I’ chat. I was abrupt and unpleasant. And then I learnt that they were ‘calling me back’ because my wife had given them my number as a contact number for a furniture delivery.

Lesson: don’t let the bad experiences cause you to assume all the unknown experiences will be bad

Imagine if you saw a recording of Brian Halligan being rude to a telemarketer – you’d lose respect for him (even though he’s a great proponent of the death of cold calling).

Tip: Live as though every interaction will be broadcast for the world to see.

Shot 4: Stat of the Week

Source: Google Data, Global, May 2016.

Shot 5: Opinion(s) of the Week

Black Friday Buyer’s Remorse

http://www.craigbailey.net/black-friday-buyers-remorse/

Good comparison of how complementary working with an agency can be with your internal marketing team. Oh, and hi Zoe!

https://www.brandchemistry.com.au/blog/why-just-hiring-in-house-marketing-is-not-enough

Rented Land can be used to your advantage:

https://medium.com/@karolian/we-put-our-website-on-facebook-for-free-and-it-drove-a-ton-of-traffic-561b43611cbe#.ujvoy6v3c

Storytelling like Tesla:

https://readthink.com/tell-your-company-story-like-tesla-b10c815b9124#.6e9k2rk39

Shot 6: Pro Tip of the Week

Optimising Website Forms

Here is the HubSpot Project > https://app.hubspot.com/projects/l/templates/64108

This can be critical if your forms are out of control if you have in the past been building a new form for each campaign or landing page.  So you should tidy it up for Top, middle and bottom of the funnel.

You can also collect data through hidden form fields > http://knowledge.hubspot.com/forms-user-guide/how-to-pass-hidden-contact-property-values-with-forms

Shot 7: Resource of the Week

Land page examples:

https://klientboost.com/cro/landing-page-trends/

Not really trends, but more a list of examples to get inspiration from.

We are starting to build long landing pages to test response.

Here’s an example of a long landing page from HubSpot:

http://offers.hubspot.com/competitor-analysis-guide

Shot 8: Updated Mobile App of the Week

None to report!

Shot 9: Mobile App of the Week

Stocard – Loyalty Cards Wallet

Store ALL your loyalty cards in one app. Get rid of all the plastic cards in your wallet!

iPhone: https://itunes.apple.com/au/app/stocard-loyalty-cards-wallet/id444578884?mt=8

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.stocard.stocard&hl=en

Shot 10: Podcast of the Week

At the risk of being too insular…

Moby gives an excellent roundup of SEO trends and tools in the latest episode of InboundBuzz.

http://www.redpandas.com.au/ep42/

Shot 11: Quote of the Week

We had a value at Kissmetrics, we still do, it’s called: be better than yesterday. Think about what you are most focused on and ask yourself every day, “Am I getting better at that?” And if you’re not, ask, “What can I do tomorrow to get better?”

– Hiten Shah ( https://medium.com/@hnshah )

For more read this article: https://readthink.com/the-secret-club-of-admitting-you-suck-623447bf4f08#.pja1m3vmn

Shot 12: Logic Puzzle of the Week

The Maker does not need it, the Buyer does not use it, and the User uses it without knowing. What is it?