Inbound marketing success starts and ends with the creation, amplification and distribution of unique and valuable content. Great content can inspire, solve a problem, answer a question and build the foundation for consumer trust every brand seeks. So it is no surprise that business both big and small are writing, posting, tweeting and sharing more content than ever before. In a single 24-hour period there are 2 million new blog posts published, 294 billion emails sent, 864 thousand hours of video added to YouTube and 400 million posted tweets.

For years, inbound marketing pioneer, HubSpot, revealed insightful and successful tactics that helped businesses grow while decreasing, or altogether eliminating traditional advertising from their marketing budgets. One exception has been the use of pay-per-click (PPC) and promoted social ads. As an agency, we have experienced that these types of digital ads can be an essential element of both B2C and B2B campaigns. At last week’s 2015 Inbound Conference, HubSpot representatives reiterated the benefits this type of advertising provides when implemented in a way that is measureable. In fact, 53% of customers have tried ads this year. As our team sat in the audience and listened to HubSpot co-founder, Dharmesh Shah, announce the release of the new Ads Add-On feature, we were all in agreement that this new enhancement will provide even more value for many of our clients.

Qualifying prospective customers is an essential function for many companies that want to nurture and convert the best prospects. It is also an important factor in analyzing information about less qualified leads and determining factors that could be used to increase their level of qualification. A valuable resource that has allowed HubSpot users to establish a scoring system that assigns point values to contacts based on individual contact properties, form submissions and list memberships is called Custom Lead Scoring. Its benefits include:

Bloggers and content producers often feel like they carry the weight of the world on their shoulders. Between managing stakeholder requests and begging for team content contributions, creating fresh topics can be a constant struggle in the quest to engage readers and drive website traffic.

Last week we collaborated with Weidert Group of Appleton, WI to host an amazing 2-day conference called Experience Inbound. The event was held at two of the states most iconic sports venues including Wednesday at Miller Park in Milwaukee and Thursday at Lambeau Field in Green Bay. Over the course of the two days, 240 attendees came together to meet, share expertise and throw down some serious sales and inbound marketing knowledge. We can’t thank these dynamic speakers enough for their time and participation in our event.

•  Mark Roberge, HubSpot CRO and author of The Sales Acceleration Formula
• Chad Pollitt, VP of Audience, Relevance.com, #5 on Top 100 Content Marketers
• Ryan Panzer, Google Adwords Strategist
• Elise Ramsay, Wistia Community Manager
• Caitlin Moyer, Director New Media, Milwaukee Brewers
• Jeff Coon, Partner, Stream Creative
• Greg Linnemanstons, President, Weidert Group
• Steve James, Partner, Stream Creative
• Frank Isca, Partner, Weidert Group

Additionally, we’d like to extend a big thank you to our event sponsors:

• Gordon Flesh Company
• SalesSmith
• OnMilwaukee.com
• Insight
• Big Shoes Network
• Wayne Breitbarth: Power Formula For LinkedIn Success

Take a look at what our attendees and speakers had to say about the event throughout the day!

Personalization and engagement does not come naturally for every business or brand in regard to communication across various social channels. Developing meaningful and relevant conversations with customers, followers and fans drives deeper interaction and long-term loyalty. In addition to truly listening to your network, it takes a dedicated team, time and commitment to establish a high level of personalization across social channels.

If you are looking for an opportunity to rub elbows with key influencers in your industry and build a networking community of like-minded, bright professionals, consider attending an industry conference, prepared, the right way. This doesn’t mean stocking up on new pens and stationary; this means doing your research, preparing your objectives and updating your contact information and online touch points. Attending a conference without proper preparation is a missed networking opportunity. 

More and more businesses are discovering the value of using visual content and video as an inbound marketing tool to help generate leads and create loyalty. It is now apparent that marketers do not need to be turned off by the common misconception that video should be produced in a costly way. The reality is, video has an important place in your marketing workflows and it can be quite easy to do – not to mention fun. By far, it is one of the easiest tools you can use to build an emotional connection with your website visitors, prospects and customers.

Most marketers understand the link between content marketing and branding, and the power it holds in regard to staying competitive and boosting your product or service. With the right mix of content marketing strategies, businesses will experience more traffic, engagement, lead generation and sales. Nobody understands this more than Chad Pollitt, VP of Audience and Co-founder of Relevance.com, an online publication dedicated to helping marketing and communications executives solve their online content visibility challenges.

Tasked with a goal to improve your online presence and increase website traffic, your small marketing team and limited budget may initially discourage you. The truth is -- growth strategies do not have to be complicated to be successful.