Every marketer faces different challenges. Although we typically share similar goals, some teams are stuck on hiring top talent, while others are having trouble finding the right technology for their needs.

Whatever the case may be, there’s always at least one area that you can stand to improve. In other words, there’s always room to optimize the various components of your strategy and turn your marketing into an even more effective revenue generator.

Curious about what kinds of obstacles other marketers are up against?

We polled thousands of marketers on the challenges they face, as well as the tactics they’ve used to meet those challenges head-on. Here are some of the most common challenges marketers reported struggling with … and their solutions.

The Most Common Marketing Problems We Face, According to the 2016 State of Inbound Report

According to our report, generating traffic and leads and proving ROI are the leading challenges marketers face. Here’s a look at this year’s data:

Image Credit: The 2016 State of Inbound Report

Let’s go through each of these top challenges and how marketers can address them.

1) Generating Traffic and Leads

Why It’s a Challenge

Generating enough traffic and leads was the top marketing challenge, according to the 2016 State of Inbound report. While we ask marketers about their challenges every year, this time we added this answer as a new option — and we’re glad we did.

Clearly, marketers are struggling with producing enough demand for their content. And as the years progress and competition stiffens, this will only become more true. With so many options of platforms for marketers to publish their content and even more ways to promote it, it’s hard to know where to focus your efforts.

What Can You Do?

When it comes to creating content that produces enough traffic and leads, marketers should ask themselves two questions: Are you truly creating high-quality content — the type of content people would pay for? And, do you know the type of content your audience actually wants?

For example, HubSpot Research has found that 43% of consumers want to see more video from marketers in the future, while only 29% want to see more blog posts. To learn more about how the way people are reading and interacting with content is changing, check out this HubSpot Research report.

Once you know you’re creating the type of content your audience wants, the focus shifts to promoting it in a way that makes your audience take notice. More than ever before, people are being flooded with content. Consumers don’t have to use a search engine to find answers. Instead, articles fill their news feed or buzz in their pocket via mobile notification.

Needless to say, the content promotion playbook is not the same as it was five years ago. To make sure your traffic and lead numbers continue to rise, check out this comprehensive guide to content promotion.

2) Providing the ROI of Your Marketing Activities

Why It’s a Challenge

Measuring the ROI (return on investment) of your marketing activities has remained a top marketing challenge year-over-year. But, it also continues to be a vital way for marketers to understand the effectiveness of each particular marketing campaign, piece of content, etc.

Plus, proving ROI often goes hand-in-hand with making an argument to increase budget: No ROI tracking, no demonstrable ROI. No ROI, no budget.

But tracking the ROI of every single marketing activity isn’t always easy, especially if you don’t have two-way communication between your marketing activities and sales reports.

What Can You Do?

When it comes to providing ROI, there’s a strong case to be made for dedicating time and resources to establishing links between marketing activities and sales results. This means using both marketing software (like HubSpot) and a CRM solution (like HubSpot’s free CRM), and then tying them together to close the loop between your marketing and sales efforts with a service-level agreement (SLA). That way, you can directly see how many leads and customers are generated through your marketing activities.

We’ve found there’s no better combination than having an SLA and doing inbound marketing. According to this year’s report, inbound organizations with SLAs are over 5 times as likely to rate their marketing strategy as effective compared to outbound organizations with misaligned marketing and sales teams.

(Use this ROI calculator to simulate the potential ROI you could realize by conducting inbound marketing.)

3) Securing Enough Budget

Why It’s a Challenge

Securing more budget is a pressing challenge for marketing globally. And often, getting more budget is easier said than done — especially for smaller organizations that aren’t working with sizable nor flexible marketing spend.

But the key to securing more money for your team might not be that complex. Here’s what you can do.

What Can You Do?

The key to unlocking budget lies in being able to prove the ROI of your marketing efforts. According to our report, organizations that can calculate ROI are 1.6 times as likely to receive higher budgets.

Again, success with inbound marketing also plays a large role in driving higher budgets. Effective strategies obviously produce results, and our data shows those who feel confident in their marketing strategy are over 2 times as likely to get higher budgets for their marketing teams. But remember, inbound marketing is a long game. If you get off to a slow start, you shouldn’t back off — in fact, you might consider doubling down.

4) Managing Your Website

Why It’s a Challenge

Managing a website was the fourth biggest challenge for marketers in 2016. And chances are, your website’s performance is high on your list of priorities. It’s an asset that works around the clock to draw in visitors, convert them, and help you hit your goals, after all.

Issues with website management includes a variety of different factors, from writing and optimizing the content to designing beautiful webpages. Here are a few things marketers can do to deal with this challenge.

What Can You Do?

First, read this report to see how your website stacks up against over 1 million other websites. It also includes a deep analysis on the four most critical elements of website performance and design, from average load time and website security, to mobile friendliness and SEO.

If your primary challenge with managing a website has to do with the skills and resources you have available, you aren’t alone. This is especially true for small companies who don’t have all the talent in-house required to cover content, optimization, design, and back-end website management.

One solution? Hire freelancers and agency partners. This year, our data showed an increase in the number of respondents who indicated they use freelancers and agency partners for content creation. To find freelancers, we recommend:

• Tapping into your personal and professional network by posting on LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networks with a description of what you’re looking for.
• Browsing freelance writers and designers based on their portfolios and areas of interest. For writers, check out Zerys and Contently. For designers, check out Behance & Elance.
• Browsing HubSpot’s Services Marketplace, which lists a wide variety of designers from partner companies and agencies we’ve deemed credible.

Overall, you can make website management easier on your team by hosting your website on a platform that integrates all your marketing channels like HubSpot’s COS.

Finally, for the projects you want to keep in-house, here is a list of blog posts that might be helpful to your team:

• Blog post: 15 of the Best Website Homepage Design Examples
• Blog post: Lead Gen 101: How to Create an Intuitive Website Conversion Path
• Blog post: Web Design 101: How HTML, CSS, and JavaScript Work
• Blog post: The 8 Elements of Modern Web Design (And Web Design Trends to Watch)
• Blog post: The Beginner’s Guide to SSL: What It Is & Why It Makes Your Website More Secure
• Blog post: Designing a Website Blueprint: How to Create Your XML Sitemap
• Ebook: The Ultimate Workbook for Redesigning Your Website

5) Identifying the Right Technologies for Your Needs

Why It’s a Challenge

Finding the right technologies was the fifth biggest concern for marketers this year. Oftentimes, this is because feedback on technology is scattered. Marketers might turn to colleagues, friends in the industry, and/or analyst reports to figure out which technologies best fit their needs — only to find that feedback is spread across emails, social media, and so on from people of varied reputability.

When you’re looking for a tool, software, or piece of technology to solve a specific marketing problem, where do you go to find it?

What Can You Do?

For those of you looking for a tool, software, or piece of technology to solve a specific marketing problem, we recommend taking a look at Growthverse: a free, interactive, online visualization of the marketing technology landscape that focuses on the business problems marketers are trying to solve, and leads them to specific pieces of marketing technology that aim to solve those problems. We’ve found it to be a really well visualized map of carefully curated marketing technology resources. (Click here to read a blog post about how Growthverse works.)

It’s worth noting that the main tool in top marketers’ arsenals is a platform for automating their team’s marketing efforts. We found that although our respondents indicated using an array of specific products, the larger trend was telling: The top marketers use marketing automation software in some form or another. Meanwhile, 44% of marketers cite marketing automation as a top priority for the next year.

6) Targeting Content for an International Audience

Why It’s a Challenge

Targeting is a key component of all aspects of marketing. To be more effective at targeting, one of the first things any marketer needs do is identify their buyer personas to determine who it is they should be marketing to. If you’re expanding internationally, it can be a big challenge not only to figure out the best ways to market to an international audience, but also to organize and optimize your site for different countries.

What Can You Do?

Start by reading this blog post on 22 global marketing hacks and resources. There are some really helpful tips in there that’ll help give you some direction on global marketing, including how to identify your top three growth markets, how to explore local trends, and tips on choosing the best localization providers. (For a more in-depth guide, download our free ebook, The Global Marketing Playbook.)

Remember, your website visitors might speak a plethora of different languages and live in totally different time zones. To make your content appealing to a wide audience, you’ll need to keep your global visitors top-of-mind when creating all your content. This means being aware of seasonal references, translating units of measure and monetary references, and giving translators the tools and permissions to customize and adapt content for a specific audience when they need to.

Finally, be sure you’re optimizing your website for international visitors, too. One of the first and most important decisions you’ll need to make is determining which domain structure should be used for additional languages and countries. (For more tips and resources on global marketing expansion, browse our international inbound marketing hub.)

7) Training Your Team

Why It’s a Challenge

As companies scale and technologies continue to evolve, training your team will become a greater challenge for marketers. Whether it’s training them on the concepts and tools they’ll be using every day or making sure they’re achieving their full potential, the struggle is real across the board.

To combat this, I’ll share some tips I’ve used during my trainings to make sure the concepts and tool tips stick and have a lasting effect on your team and your marketing.

What Can You Do?

To get an overall idea of where your team stands, take a few minutes to assess each of your team members’ marketing strengths and weaknesses, levels of expertise, and passion/commitment to your company. Then, objectively rate the priority (or level of importance) of their expertise and their contribution to bottom line objectives (ROI) to date. Here’s a simple assessment tool from Lean Labs to help you evaluate your team so you can figure out who needs recognition and who needs coaching.

Next, check out this awesome resource from HubSpot Academy, The Ultimate Guide to Marketing Training. It’s a guide that’ll help you navigate all the marketing training options you have, from quick daily habits to more rigorous, career-launching investments.

You also might consider requiring your team members to rack up some online marketing certification. HubSpot Academy, for example, offers certifications, documentation, and training programs to help people master the basics of inbound marketing. Google also offers training and certifications on analytics with their online Analytics Academy.

What about new hire training, specifically? We recommend creating a training plan for new team members. Here at HubSpot, each new marketer is given a 100-day plan like this one to lay out specific goals and help new hires demonstrate their effectiveness.

8) Hiring Top Talent

Why It’s a Challenge

Hiring top talent was the eighth biggest challenge marketers reported experiencing this year. Why? Many companies are shifting more resources to inbound marketing, which means higher and higher demand for top marketing talent. But supply simply isn’t keeping up. From sourcing the right candidates to evaluating for the right skills, finding the perfect person could take months … or more.

What’s more, the type of marketing talent companies are looking for is changing, too. In Moz and Fractl’s analysis of thousands of job postings on Indeed.com, they concluded that employers are seeking marketers with technical and creative skill sets. And the quick rate at which the demand for these jobs are rising has caused a marketing skills gap, “making it difficult to find candidates with the technical, creative, and business proficiencies needed to succeed in digital marketing.”

What Can You Do?

Employers are looking for marketers with a diverse skill set that includes digital marketing, content marketing, SEO, and social media marketing. To find the best inbound marketer for your team, the first thing you should do is decide what that person needs to be able to achieve for your business.

Ask yourself: What will the new marketer’s tasks and duties include? What skills do those tasks and duties require? What goals or challenges will the new marketer face? Use your answers to these questions to write a compelling job description. (Here are 37 pre-written marketing job descriptions to help you get started.)

Next, post your jobs where talented inbound marketers will find them. While traditional job sites like Indeed.com, CareerBuilder.com, or LinkedIn will help you cast a wide net, we recommend checking out Inbound.org, which is the only job listing service in the world that’s exclusively focused on inbound marketing and sales jobs.

Finally, focus your job description and new hire 100-day plan what people value most in their careers. This year, the data shows that 60% of people consider opportunities for growth when looking for a new job, while 50% are looking for a good work/life balance. This also varies by international region, with workers in Southeast Asia (SEA) and Latin America (LATAM) valuing growth opportunities the most.

Does Your Company Face Any of These Challenges?

A thorough analysis of your marketing strategy and its current performance will help you discover where your biggest marketing opportunity lies. This will allow you to focus on improving the areas that need the most attention, so you can start making your marketing far more effective.

If you’re faced with a challenge and want ideas on how to best tackle it, you can always consider getting some help by any of the various types of marketing training that are available.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2012 and has been updated for freshness and comprehensiveness.

You’re ready to get your inbound marketing machine going. You’ve read the case studies and statistics showing how effective inbound marketing is at pulling together a full enrollment class.

And then you start thinking about the all the different strategies and tactics and new social media platforms and metrics and… Holy cow, it can all seem to be a bit much. Where is a small education marketing team to start?

Well, we’ll tell you. Here are some guidelines to follow so you can get started with your own inbound marketing plan.

Start with the Baby Steps

We all have to walk before we run. Don’t think about the full volume of what inbound marketing can do for you and all the options you have under the rubric of inbound marketing. Finding a focus can be especially difficult for new schools and programs, or independent schools, that don’t have a pre-existing marketing framework to use as a reference point. So for starters, put your focus on taking action. 

When you’re first starting, your immediate goal is to take consistent action. Set some milestones, such as publishing one blog post a week and making one new offer a month.  Hitting these milestones will create habits and build skills your team will need to grow your inbound marketing chops,  refining your workflows so all their underlying tasks become easier to execute over time.

Focusing first on taking consistent action will also let you establish a baseline of your efforts’ performance, which you can then use to set more results-oriented goals in the future. 

As a very first step, create your personas (this free template can help). Inbound marketing always starts with the right personas. Putting together persona profiles forces you to investigate who your target market really is, what they care about, what they want to know, and where they’re getting their information.

Get Some Quick Wins 

You can tap into existing resources to quickly hit your action milestones. If you already publish a blog, review your current posts in light of your new persona profiles. For posts on topics that meet your personas’ needs, freshen them up with a new, improved keyword strategy. Update them with more current information. If your persona process revealed that your blog has been focusing on the wrong topics, time to change course with your posts.

You can find a lot of good, relevant blog content in materials the school already has. Go through different department newsletters, course syllabi, or admissions materials. Use them as starting points to generate some new blog posts quickly. 

Want some quick wins with your content offers? Take a look back at your old content offers. Pick one that best fits what you know about your new personas. Freshen up the content if needed with updated information or new graphics. Spruce up some new CTAs to place on your website and to promote via social media.

A great first choice for creating a new content offer is to look at who’s already in your database. Do you have a sluggish, un-engaged pool of emails? Put together a re-engagement campaign for them. 

For additional email tips, take a look at this free guide >>  

Whatever you decide your quick wins will be, here’s a library of 360+ templates you can use to quickly create great looking content. 

Looking to the Bigger Picture

Once you feel like you’ve started some good habits and met your small milestones, it’s time to move one step further and do a little planning for the future.

For your blog, this means brainstorming a list of 30-40 blog topics. Don’t do this on your own. Bring in people from admissions, perhaps a faculty member and student or two. With a working list of blog topics, ramp-up your publication schedule. For the first time, set a goal of publishing 2-3 posts every week. At this pace, your topic list will keep you running for a quarter. For your next brainstorm session, you can ramp these numbers up even further. 

This is also a good time to take another look at your social media platforms. Which ones are really worth your effort? Perhaps you should keep some for student and prospect communications only. Learn which channels parents and potential employment sources gravitate to and reach out to them with content that keeps them interested in your campus. 

Clarify which social media platforms deserve your focus, and who you’re trying to reach with each of them. Then optimize your profile, and set up templates and best practices for each one. Your social media profiles are distribution force multipliers, so make sure they’re getting your message out.

This is also the time to expand your vision beyond driving traffic to your website. Your goal has never been simply to get traffic. It’s time to convert some of your website visitors into prospects and get their email address into your database. You do this through a stellar content offer, say a guide to your academy’s applicant assessment process or the scholarships available at your school that motivates people to give you their email address to get it. 

With their email address in your database, you now have options to target them further with content that pushes them down the enrollment funnel.

No Actions is Too Small 

However small your baby steps are, take them now. Inbound marketing builds on itself. Whatever small changes you make now will continue to provide benefits well down the line. Blog posts you publish now will continue to draw traffic over the years. Out of the blue, someone will retweet one of your content offers months after you sent it out. You might warn students that “the Internet is forever,” but when it comes to inbound marketing – this can be a great plus.

Another great advantage to inbound marketing is everything that you can learn from every single action you take. Every. Single. One. You’ll learn more about your market, about what works with them and what doesn’t. You can build each subsequent email series or blog editorial calendar on better intel. You’ll also improve your own internal workflows that will help you generate more content more quickly.

Inbound marketing creates a continuous, virtual cycle the pushes everything forward with greater momentum the longer you do it. But first, you’ve got to get started.  Want a more detailed action plan? Here’s an inbound plan for your first 100 days.

“Getting found” isn’t a new phenomenon for inbound marketers. In fact, being searchable is one of the founding principles of inbound marketing — a principle that continues to evolve as consumers begin to change their habits and innovative new technologies start to emerge. 

According to the 2016 State of Inbound report, 66% of marketers agree that growing SEO is their top priority for 2017. And while Google’s algorithm updates as we known them have notoriously favored text-based updates for desktop and mobile, gaining SEO momentum in the future requires marketers to shift their focus a bit.

What about voice search? Or how about SEO for other platforms such as Facebook and Medium? Users have reached a point where they’re looking beyond Google in favor of more unconventional search engines such as social networks, bots, personal assistants, and messaging apps.

What does this mean for marketers? Well, people change. Habits change. Technology changes. Which means inbound has to change, too. To help you keep pace on the SEO side of things, check out the infographic below — and then head to stateofinbound.com for even more information on where SEO is headed in the future.  

What do you think about the future of search? Leave your comments below or engage with us on Twitter using the hashtag #FutureofInbound.

It’s inevitable: at some point, your client will give you the silent treatment. They probably don’t mean to make you blow steam from your ears — it just happens — and getting over the communication slump starts with walking a mile in their shoes.

It’s important to remember that many companies are understaffed and stretched thin. And even though studies show that burnout is bad for business, we see it happen all the time.

While it may be frustrating when you can’t get an answer from your client, it’s usually not the result of ill will or without reason. There’s a good chance your client lives in meetings for most of their days, leaving them with only a small window to take calls and answer emails. An empathic approach to your client relationships — rather than an angry one — will be better for both you and your client in the long run.

Why Clients Go Dark

There are several explanations for why your clients aren’t answering you. It could be as simple as email clutter. Haven’t we all tried to block off calendar time to clean out our inboxes, only to veer off course into this project or that phone call? We’re only human.

Experts say you need an entire minute to recover from reading a single email. And at bare minimum, you’d need three hours a day dedicated only to reading and sending emails if you were to stay completely caught up on your inbox. Your client might not have the bandwidth to sift through their inbox every day.

They could also be waiting on another department or team member to weigh in before they get back to you, and they just don’t have anything new to report. They could be putting out other fires they perceive as more important, or they could simply be stalling because they’re suffering from a bit of decision paralysis (again, it happens to the best of us).

Worst case scenario, they have bad news to deliver and they’re putting it off. But don’t jump to conclusions. While it’s normal for you to devote roughly 25 percent to 40 percent of your time to a project, clients usually devote only 5 percent to 10 percent of their time. Most likely, their lack of communication stems from the fact that they’re juggling a lot at once and are strapped for time.

The question is this: How do you move forward without feeling like you’re constantly nagging them?

Strategies for Breaking the Silence

It’s not easy to keep clients engaged when they’re seemingly tuning you out, but these simple strategies can help you stay in touch without hurting the relationship.

1) When setting deadlines, emphasize the most important ones.

If you assume your clients are going to miss any deadlines right out of the gate, you’re already planning ahead. Tell them upfront which deadlines are essential, and be firm about which will affect the success or timing of the project. If they’re going to forget something, it might as well be one of the less important somethings.

2) Be clear about the consequences of missing specific deadlines.

Don’t be afraid to put things in concrete terms: “If we don’t get X, we can’t make Y happen.” This will light a fire in many clients right away because they don’t want to risk failure of their project. If you’re not clear about what you need from your client, you’ll end up taking the blame for missed deadlines yourself.

3) Don’t use calendar due dates.

Instead, set deadlines in number of days. For example, “Five workdays after we receive X, we can deliver Y.” This creates a more visual timeline of what happens when even one small deadline is missed. It also gives your client a better understanding of the big consequences their lack of responsiveness can have on the project.

4) Get a structure in place for clear communication.

Agree on turnaround times and communication methods right away with your client. Ask if phone calls are better than emails. Maybe face-to-face meetings are more your clients’ style. Don’t assume that what works for you will work for them. If they have days they know are more hectic or they know they’ll be unavailable, make note of those, too.

5) Don’t end a meeting without scheduling a follow-up.

It’s kind of like getting a second date with someone you like: If you like someone, you shouldn’t hesitate to ask him or her out again. Go after your clients in a similar way. If you leave the schedule open-ended, you’ve just created another step you have to take to set it up later (and more messages for which you’ll have to wait for responses).

6) Create a ‘If we don’t hear from you’ plan.

Proactively ask your clients things like “How can we move this forward on our own, just in case we don’t hear from you?” It creates a backup plan right away, making it more likely that your deliverables and timeline can press onward. Plus, the more your clients can trust you to make decisions on their behalf, the stronger your relationships will become.

7) Get acquainted with your clients’ schedules.

When you want to escalate your communication urgency appropriately and respectfully, that might look very different if your client is having a “normal” week as opposed to being out of the office for a family reunion or vacation.

Get a sense of what your clients’ weeks typically look like so you can set reasonable deliverable dates. Making a “tell us about your week” question part of your usual status meetings with clients is a quick, easy way to anticipate issues and also understand what is reasonable and what might not be.

The Better You Understand Your Clients, The Easier It Becomes

From the agency’s perspective, an unresponsive client can squeeze the agency’s time to complete the project. Sometimes, a project has a fixed deadline, so no matter how the client delays the work, the agency still has to scramble to get it done. It can also lead to rush charges or other unnecessary expenses. But think of client silence this way: You should always be seeking to understand your customers better anyway, and unresponsiveness is yet another opportunity to do just that. Getting through this slump could be just the thing to bring you closer together.

With fall on its way, the countdown to November’s INBOUND 2016 event is in full-swing. Every year, thousands of marketers and their peers gather to learn, inspire, and network.

That last one — networking — gets a lot of us pretty excited. After all, it’s how 85% of people say they’ve landed a job. And personally, if I’m really into an event and I’m feeling super energetic, I love to network. But I don’t always feel so peppy. Then what?

Sometimes, we have to fall back on an arsenal of conversation starters. It helps to spark a discussion, even when it’s taking every ounce of willpower you have not to go home, turn on Netflix, and order sushi.

We’ve got your back. Here are some of the conversation starters that we’ve tried and have seen succeed. Bookmark them for your next networking event — or your next night out, you scoundrel.

17 Great Conversation Starters to Break the Ice at Networking Events

1) “Hi, I’m ‘X.'”

It actually works. Just be sure you have something to follow your introduction, so that you don’t end up staring at each other in silence. And as you’ll see, that’s the key to most conversation starters — be ready with a follow-up. Saying “hi” is just your way to get the ball rolling, so be sure you can keep the exchange going and take it to the next level.

(Note: Please use your first name, instead of “X.”)

2) “Are you having issues with the Wi-Fi?”

Good news: The answer is almost always “yes.” Plus, I don’t know about you, but I think we all have war stories of when the internet stopped working for us at the worst time — those are always great conversation starters.

3) “That [food or beverage] looks great. Where did you find it?”

This question can offer a few different answers. The person might just tell you where they got it, or they could go into a description or a comment on the quality. Not sure where to go from there? Tell them about a place where you once had the best version of whatever they’re drinking or snacking on. But frame it as a question — “Have you ever been to Hawaii? I once had the best fish tacos there.”

This technique also works with neutral compliments, like telling someone that you love their laptop bag or jacket. Most people enjoy receiving positive feedback, and will probably follow up with a story about where or how they got it. (And if they don’t follow up, ask them about it — remember, keep the conversation going.)

4) “Do you know if there’s a coat check?”

I always like to leverage the communal confusion that occurs at every event. When you first arrive, no one really knows what they’re doing. But anyone who does will jump at the chance to be “in the know.”

5) “I can’t believe how cold/hot/beautiful it is today.”

Talking about the weather sounds so cliché, but it actually works — especially if people are visiting from out of town. Maybe someone from sunny California, for example, is traveling to Boston for INBOUND this year. Of course, that would require you to ask the person where they’re from, first. But once you have an answer, you can even make a joke about it — “Boy, I bet you’re glad you left Los Angeles behind for a few days of chilly New England weather.”

6) “Are you here with colleagues?”

If someone you’re speaking with is at the event with a group of people, that can allow your circle to expand — if you’re proactive about it. You can tactfully express interest in meeting someone’s co-worker by asking what the different roles are on that person’s team, and responding with something like, “You know, I’ve always wanted to learn more about X. Would you mind introducing me to your colleague who works on that?”

But if that person is flying solo, you can generate some empathy as a fellow lone wolf. That doesn’t mean you should cling to that person the entire time, but a “me, too” is always nice. Just be sure not to leave it at that — follow up with an idea of where to meet some of your fellow cohorts, like mentioning that there’s supposed to be a great breakout session later.

7) “You guys look like you’re having the most fun over here. Mind if I join this conversation?”

Of course, you’ll probably want to say that to people who actually look like they’re having a good time. And really, who’s going to say “no” to that? If they do, chances are, you’ll want to find another group to hang out with, anyway.

8) “Are you here to see anyone in particular?”

If you’re both interested in meeting the same people or seeing the same sessions, this question will help you establish that common ground. Regardless of the answer, you’ll learn more about each others’ goals and reasons for attending the event, which promotes an exchange of ideas and knowledge. And that can create opportunities, even after the event is over — you never know when that person might need your expertise down the line, or vice-versa.

9) “Did you all come here together, or did you meet here?”

This question is a great one when you’ve joined a group of strangers. It also opens up the conversation to everyone in the group, instead of limiting it to the people sitting right next to you. And the more people chatting, the better — it’s another opportunity for you to learn about everyone’s goals and exchange ideas.

10) “Well, while we’re here, I might as well introduce myself.”

If the event is big enough, chances are that you’ll have to wait in line for something — a keynote, the restroom, or food, to name a few. And, as the least patient person on the planet, I can attest to the effectiveness of using that time to do something other than focusing on how slowly the line is moving. Put that energy toward something productive, like meeting the people around you. 

11) “Did you hear X speak?”

Being at the same conference, sessions and speakers are guaranteed common ground, so use that to your advantage. It’s a great starting point that can go in a lot of different conversational directions — did you see that person speak at a different event? Did you read their work? What did you think of the talk?

12) “Have you ever been to X down the street? I’ve really wanted to check it out.”

This question is a great one when you’re attending an out-of-town event. If there’s a restaurant there that you’ve heard good things about, you can ask locals and visitors alike if they want to check it out, too.

And if you’re a local yourself, and you’re chatting with visitors, you can recommend that they see the place while they’re in town. Mention that you haven’t been there in a while, or that you’d love to go back. If there’s a shared interest in going, you can suggest heading over together or sharing a cab.

But if they’re not interested in going to that particular venue, ask them if they can recommend where to go, or if there’s another place they wanted to check out. You could suggest heading there together, too, but make sure you’re not being too pushy — sometimes, people really just want to take a break to be alone, so don’t take it personally.

13) “Are you speaking at this event?”

Be sure to have a quick follow-up if the answer is “no” — like asking if any of that person’s colleagues are speaking, or which sessions they plan on attending. Questions like that can prime you to learn more about what the person does, and how you might be able to learn from each other.

But if the answer is yes — jackpot. That’s a great opportunity to ask them what they’re speaking about, and what made them so interested in the topic. And be sure to mention you’re looking forward to attending, and what you hope to learn from it.

And if that person already spoke, but you missed it — “Bummer,” you can tell them. Just be sure to ask if there’s somewhere you’ll be able to watch it online, or when their next speaking engagement is.

14) “Is this your first time at this event”

If the answer is “yes,” use that to make the person feel like an expert, without overwhelming them. Ask them for insider tips on how to make the most of the event, what was different about it last year, and what they’re hoping to do this year. That can lay the groundwork for uncovering shared interests.

But first-timers can empathize with you, and you can even ask them some of the same questions, like what made them come to the event in the first place and how they’re liking it so far. You’re still opening up the conversation to a potential “me, too” moment, and might find an opportunity to participate in a session together.

15) “Did you understand what the speaker meant when she said, ‘X’?”

This question creates a great opportunity to start chatting with some of the people who were sitting next to you during a session, instead of silently/awkwardly shuffling out when it’s over. If you legitimately didn’t understand something, don’t be embarrassed — it might have confused other people, too. Brainstorming different interpretations of a talk can actually be kind of fun — it gives you a chance to be creative and possibly share ideas with someone who has a fresh perspective.

And even if that person did understand what was confusing you, asking them to explain it might accomplish a little bit of ego-stroking. But keep the conversation going — especially if you actually want to learn more about what that person has to say.

16) “I’m tired of talking to my colleagues — I see them all the time. What are you guys talking about?”

This one is a spinoff of a pickup line from comedian Pete Holmes’ podcast. His original version was, “I’m tired of talking to my friends, what are you guys talking about?”

It’s a line that’s effective in a number of scenarios, because it’s most likely true. It’s not that you don’t like your colleagues — but as long as you’re surrounded by new people, why not gain some of that fresh perspective I mentioned earlier? It shows an interest in getting to know the folks who are there, and sets the tone for you to exchange funny office stories, which is always a great icebreaker with someone unfamiliar.

17) “Alright, I’ve got an awesome marketing joke for you.”

This only works if you actually have an awesome marketing joke. Luckily, my colleague Corey Wainwright wrote a list for you here, so you’re all set.

Ready to Network?

Sometimes, we joke that if all else fails, you can just say to the person standing next to you, “I need a drink!” If it’s been a long day, it’s likely that the person will agree with you, and might even be interested in joining you. (But please, drink responsibly — all of your great conversation starters will go to waste if you end up overdoing it.) 

The point is, as long as you’re being appropriate, you can start a conversation about nearly anything. And if it helps to know, I thought I’d mention that my personal favorite icebreaker is the use of those neutral compliments I went over in #3. I figure, if it worked with a celebrity chef I once met at an event, it’ll work at INBOUND, right?

We can’t wait to see you there — grab your tickets, and be sure to say hi. 

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in July 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

In the world of tech, there has been a lot of news about the rise of chatbots and why people should care. Picture yourself asking a chatbot on Facebook or Slack, “Remind me to schedule a tweet about our product launch” or “Tell me what keywords our #1 competitor is raking for.”

What’s crazy is these already exist, and the potential for new bots to change the way we work and live is enormous.

So, what does this mean for your job? For marketing and sales? For the industry as a whole, and how we communicate with prospects and customers? How will this change the way we work — and live?

You’re in luck: We’ve organized a live event on YouTube with HubSpot’s CTO, Co-founder, and builder of GrowthBot Dharmesh Shah, as well as Looker’s Colin Zima, and Slack’s Buster Benson. They’re teaming up to tackling these burning questions about bots, and how they’ll change our world of marketing and sales.

Help build the agenda here by upvoting the questions you’d like to hear, and tweet any additional questions using the hashtag #BotHangout!

• When: Tuesday September 20th 2 p.m. ET // 11 a.m. PT for one hour
• Where: YouTube Live
• Hashtag: #BotsHangout

Want to learn more about the current state (and future) of bots? Click here to save your seat for this live event.

Meet the Speakers

Dharmesh Shah, HubSpot

Dharmesh is Co-founder & CTO of HubSpot. Dharmesh also founded and writes for OnStartups.com — a top-ranking startup blog with more than 500,000 members.

 

Colin Zima, Looker

As Chief Analytics Officer and VP of Product, Colin employs data to drive better decision making across businesses of all sizes, including high-growth start-ups & large corporations.

 

Buster Benson, Slack

Buster Benson has 18 years of experience building products at various startups, Amazon, Twitter, and now Slack. Prior to Slack, he helped build Twitter’s analytics products & quick promote tool for small businesses.

 

Moderated by: Meghan Keaney Anderson, VP of Marketing, HubSpot

As Vice President of Marketing at HubSpot, Meghan leads the content, product marketing, and customer marketing teams. Together with her teams, she’s responsible for the company’s blogs, podcast, and overall content strategy, as well as the company’s product launch and customer demand campaigns.

Inbound marketing preaches content creation, but you shouldn’t create content without first figuring out who you’re marketing to and how you will market to them. If you don’t take these initial steps to ensure your content reaches the right people, your content will not be successful.

So if your content is just sitting on your website not getting too many downloads or leads, your promotion might be the problem! That being said, here are eight ways to market your ebook, whitepaper, guide or any other content offer you already have:

1) Create a PPC campaign to advertise your content offer

While PPC is a great way to promote your company and services, you can also set up a campaign to promote your content offer. This benefits your content offer because it will boost visibility and downloads while providing useful information to searchers.

For example, if I search for home remodeling, I see four ads of local companies trying to promote their services. But if I have never heard of these companies, how do I know which home remodeling company is right for me?

That’s where a content offer based PPC ad comes into play! If you’re advertising an ebook titled “How to Find the Best Home Remodeling Company for Your Timeline & Budget”, it will stand out against the other ads and search results because it directly helps solve my problem. This means your PPC ad will probably get the click and the conversion.

Using display ads is another great way to get your content offer on relevant websites instead of Google search. With display ads you can actually choose the websites that you want your ad to appear on. This way, visitors who are browsing a popular website can find your related content offer.

2) Guest blog on popular websites with your ebook as CTA

Popular websites try to provide solutions to overarching problems that their readership is experiencing. Think of your services and your buyer persona! Where do they go to get information?

Once you nail down which websites your buyer persona is reading to get information, see if these websites offer the opportunity for industry leaders to guest blog. Some websites will require an application or an article proposal, but once you get accepted blogging for one website, it becomes much easier to get accepted on other websites.

When you write your articles, keep them educational and don’t self-promote. Remember, you’re trying to help the reader solve a problem with your expertise and industry knowledge. Then at the conclusion of the article, use your ebook as a next step call to action so if a reader finishes the article and wants more information, your content offer is there!

3) Use email marketing to promote the ebook

If you have prospects or clients who have already expressed interest in similar content offers, or who have identified certain problems they need help with, let them know about your new content offer!

For example, on your contact form, you could have visitors identify what they need help with. For an inbound marketing agency, you might say “What Does Your Business Want to Improve?” with options to select:

• Generate more leads
• Grow our web presence
• Rank higher on Google

Then once you know a visitor wants to rank higher on Google, if you create an ebook around that topic, it’s highly probable that this visitor is interested! Unless you have a constantly updated blog that brings visitors back to your website often, chances are the majority of your interested contacts won’t revisit your website to discover a new offer.

Therefore, your best bet is to promote it via email. It can be as simple as sending out one email or as complex as adding the new content offer to a marketing automation workflow.

When sending emails, be educational and try to help a segmented list of your contacts. If you know that 20 contacts have chosen “generate more leads” on the form above, then those 20 contacts would probably benefit from an email about a lead generation ebook.

You don’t want to email a specific ebook to your entire contact database because it probably doesn’t relate to all your contact lists. When you don’t segment emails, your engagement will be lower and your success will be diminished.

4) Connect with niche readers on social media

Look on Twitter and LinkedIn for users that have been sharing similar content to what you have created! Just by searching on Twitter for #inboundmarketing, I can see who is sharing inbound marketing blogs, guides & resources, plus I can see who is getting the biggest reach in terms of likes and retweets.

Reach out to these individuals with a simple message that encapsulates “Hey! I saw you shared [this article] and I thought you might like [this related content offer]”. This way you know that the individual is probably interested in what you’re writing because they’ve been interested in similar content before.

5) Utilize industry influencers for their thought leadership & reach

Industry influencers have two main goals; to find relevant articles to share with their fan base and to increase their reach. Therefore, you can utilize these influencers by giving them great content to share with their following and by increasing their reach through a quote or link in your content offer.

When looking to utilize the reach of industry influencers, I always suggest giving them an incentive to share your content offer. For example, ask them for a quote that you can incorporate into your content offer or link to another article they wrote.

Then, send a complimentary copy of your content offer to this industry influencer that includes a link or quote of theirs. I’d suggest telling them how much you’ve appreciated their expertise and that you included them in your content offer. You can either directly ask them to share your content offer or hope that because you’re expanding their reach, they’ll share your offer on their own!

You could also try a similar tactic to Tip #4, but remember, these industry influencers are probably bombarded with messages asking them to share content. Make yours unique & worth their while!

6) Submit to a Content Community or Online Group

Going back to Tip #2, think about your buyer persona again! If they get their information from a content community (like inbound.org) or an online group (such as a Facebook group, Nextdoor Neighborhood, Reddit, etc.),  post your content offer in there.

For example, if you’re a roofer in St. Louis, join your community group on NextDoor.com and offer your content there! When your neighborhood gets hit by a hailstorm, your infographic on “How to Know When to Call a Roofer for Storm Damage” can come in handy to the community’s residents!

Content communities are also a great resource for getting feedback, starting discussion & sharing your passion for your services with others.

7) Find other linking opportunities

Using tools like AHREFs, you can see other websites who have linked to content like yours. Reach out to them with your content offer link and see if they want to include a link to your resource! I find that this is most helpful when you can find a broken link that your new link can replace. Webmasters generally appreciate when someone lets them know of a problem with their website links, and if you can provide a link to replace the broken one, it might get placed!

Alternatively, use a tool like BuzzSumo and Mention.net to find mentions of your company online! You’ll be able to see who has mentioned you or your content offer and determine whether they have linked back to you or not. If they haven’t included your link, reach out to that website and explain it might provide their readers a better experience if they could find the article that is being mentioned.

If you’re looking for more backlink opportunities, I highly recommend Backlinko’s “17 Powerful (Yet Untapped) Backlink Sources” to find other places you could get a link from!

8) Repurpose your content into different formats 

If you have a semi-popular ebook, try taking its main points and creating a slideshare, infographic or quiz on it! By having multiple formats of your content, you can reach a greater audience.

An infographic is great to share on social networks, especially Pinterest, because of its visual nature. You can even cut out statistics or diagrams from the infographic to share on social media as well!

Further, a slideshare is a great resource for an interested party to show to their decision maker. For example, if a facility manager wants to do an office redesign, but isn’t sure how to bring it up to the CEO, your slideshare “5 Reasons Your Office Is Desperately In Need of a Redesign” can help him out!

Next Steps

Content that just sits on your website can’t properly do its job and bring in leads. But worry not, by using these promotion tips you’ll see a little bit of extra effort can really take a content offer from zero to hero.

If you’re interested in learning about more ways you can tweak your website & content offers to bring more leads to your business, check out the FREE ebook “Turn Your Website Into A Lead Generation Machine“:

Greetings, readers. Welcome to the HubSpot Marketing Blog.

We’re very happy to have you here. You might not realize it, but getting here was no easy task. Today, in 2016, I blog for a living, which is pretty great. But were it not for the long, twisty journey that got blogging to its current state, I might not be here. You might not be reading this.

We’ve found that there’s quite a history behind blogs. According to the documentation we uncovered — and will share with you below — they’ve been around since 1994. They looked a lot different back then, and had many different names and meanings.

Merriam Webster currently defines a blog as “a web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” Remember that — it’s going to come in handy later. But first, let’s talk about how we got here.

The Blogging Vernacular

The early vocabulary and semantics around blogging are more than a little muddy. As the practice developed, some of the more popular monikers were “weblog,” “personal web page,” and “online diary.” We’ll dive into each of these a bit as we explore the more primitive days of blogging.

Now, we simply say “blog” — that’s a pretty popular term in our vocabulary. But what it means continues to change. Bloggers have dozens of platforms and formats available (fun fact: HubSpot has a blogging platform, too), and there’s no longer a standard for what a blog is supposed to look like.

And their former look and feel was dictated by the language people used to use to describe the act of blogging. As you’ll see below, the word is primarily rooted in the idea of a log on the web. At one time, in fact, blogging was somewhat restrictive and limited to web-only subject matter.

Luckily, we’ve evolved and expanded how and why we blog since then. One day, someone figured out that we don’t have to stick to strictly technical topics when we put things on the Internet. (And thank goodness — remember that thing I said about blogging for a living?)

So, let’s see if we can better understand how that all took place. Grab some popcorn — you’re in for a 22-year-long tale.

The History of Blogging

1994-1997: The early stages

There’s a bit of debate around the first stages of blogging, much like the rest of its history — in the first half of the nineties, for example, there wasn’t a ton of online record-keeping, and most primitive blogs are either now archived or nowhere to be found.

Many of these original bloggers — despite not having yet earned that title — were the same people who first understood the value of the World Wide Web in the 1980s. One of them was then-Swarthmore-College undergrad, Justin Hall, who created a site called links.net in January 1994. It was essentially a review of HTML examples he came across from various online links, but it was enough for the New York Times Magazine to dub him the “founding father of personal bloggers”.

In that article, Hall brought up the semantics of blogging, and how he was assigned many titles during his primary days online (some of which are hilariously documented here).

“When I first started [blogging], they called it a personal home page,” he said, “then they said I’m one of the first Web diarists, and now I’m one of the first Web bloggers.”

That same year, Claudio Pinhanez (who today is a Social Data Analytics Senior Manager at IBM) began to log short entries into what he called an “Open Diary.”

But it wasn’t until December 1997 that the term “weblog” came to be. It was first used by Jorn Barger, creator of the website Robot Wisdom. He pioneered the term to describe a “log” of his internet activity, much like Hall did in 1994, which largely amounted to a list of the links he visited.

That may have set the tone for the new era of blogging that would follow less than a year later, when blogging-specific platforms began to debut.

1998-2001: More resources for bloggers

The later part of the nineties saw an uprising in resources created just for bloggers. One of them, Open Diary, launched in October 1998 and became one of the most pivotal blogging platforms — its name, was a nod to its open, community approach to blogging, as Open Diary was the first of its kind to have a membership model that allowed members of the community to comment on the work of others.

Open Diary, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

In 1999 — though no one is quite sure exactly when — then-programmer Peter Merholz (who later went on to head up design at Groupon, OpenTable, and Jawbone, among others) shortened the term “weblog” to “blog.”

It was part of a period that displayed an influx of blogging opportunities, with each platform attempting to boast its own unique set of features for a particular audience. In 1999 alone, Blogger, (which would go on to be acquired by Google), LiveJournal, and Xanga all launched.

Blogger, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

LiveJournal, c. 1999. Source: Wayback Machine

Xanga, c. 2000. Source: Wayback Machine

Xanga (for whom Twitter co-founder Biz Stone once served as creative director) actually began as a social networking site — sometimes compared to MySpace — and didn’t add blogging features until 2000.

This period of time also saw some of the first rumored video blogs. In January 2000, a man named Adam Kontras accompanied a written blog post with a video that updated friends and family on what he was doing. That November, professor Adrian Miles posted what some speculate to be one of the first video blogs, as well, calling it a “vog.”

 

 

“NO PETS ALLOWED. We smuggled him in. It was awesome. Felt all undercover.” Source: Adam Kontras

As the sun set on the nineties, blogging began to have quite an impact on many lives. People were starting to figure out how to monetize their blogs — which we’ll get into in a bit — and the stage was set for businesses and individuals alike to take bloggers seriously.

2002: A big year for blogging

The early 2000s saw a few significant events within the blogging realm. Technorati, one of the first blog search engines (but is today a company of “advertising technology specialists”), launched in February 2002.

That month, blogger Heather B. Armstrong was fired for writing about her colleagues on her personal blog, Dooce.com. While it’s not clear if she was the first blogger to be terminated because of her personal website’s content, it sparked a conversation about the privacy and freedom of expression for bloggers.

The subject arose again in 2004, when Congressional aide and controversial blogger Jessica Cutler would experience the same fate as Armstrong. Cutler, however, blogged anonymously until her identity was revealed by the website Wonkette.

The year 2002 also saw the dawn of “Mommy Bloggers,” which largely consisted of mothers blogging about parenting, aiming to create a sense of support and learning for their readers. Melinda Roberts founded TheMommyBlog.com — “one of the original mom blogs,” she writes — that April, creating a category that would continue to take storm for over a decade.

The following month, Newsweek predicted that blogs will replace traditional media and, rather in December of that year, it partially came to fruition, when Talking Points Memo broke the written transcript of Trent Lott’s infamous call into “Larry King Live” — when Lott illustriously sang the praises of Strom Thurmond. Blog entries like these would serve as a precursor to live blogging, which took shape the following year.

In August, Blog Ads was launched by Pressflex LLC. Less than a year later, Google would debut AdSense, which paired blogs with relevant advertisements (at the discretion of the blogger). Being able to advertise on blogs was a major milestone for bloggers, as it created the opportunity to monetize their work. It set the stage for blogs to be sponsored by major brands that fit their respective credos, or receive free products in exchange for endorsements or reviews. Blogging was turning into a business — and soon, a small population of bloggers would be using what used to be a hobby as their primary source of income.

The tumultuous Gawker — which New York Magazine cited as the initiation of gossip blogs — also launched in December 2002, only to cease operations in August 2016 after a high-profile legal battle.

2003: The momentum continues

TypePad and WordPress launched in 2003, continuing the trend of providing platform options to a growing number of bloggers. That’s the same year that live blogging is estimated to have started — the Guardian was one of the first outlets on record to make use of live blogging during the 2003 prime minister’s question time. The BBC refers to this blogging activity as “live text,” and has frequently used it for sporting events.

WordPress, c. 2005. Source: Wayback Machine

TypePad, c. 2003. Source: Wayback Machine

February 2003 also marked Google’s acquisition of Pyra Labs — the makers of Blogger. That was a sign of the growing business of blogging, particularly in the wake of the monetization programs that launched the previous year.

The early 2000s showed the first signs of a rise in political blogs. In 2003, for example, several traditional media outlets were encouraging staff writers and columnists to double as “cyberjournalists,” as Matt Welch called them in a piece for the Columbia Journalism Review. It reflected a growing number of political bloggers, with many seasoned reporters looking to blogging for opinion and beat outlets.

That climate primed the blogosphere for what would follow in the latter half of the decade, when the perspectives and analyses of political bloggers began to be preferred sources of information on current events. The line between traditional media and the blogosphere would start to bend, as bloggers were fated to become members of the press.

2004 – 2005: Video and the press

Despite the earliest video blogs being recorded in 2000, it wasn’t until the middle part of the decade that visual content really had the opportunity to take root. In February 2004, videographer Steve Garfield — who went on to be one of the Web’s first video bloggers declared it to be the “year of the video blog.”

As fate would have it, YouTube launched only a year later in February 2005, shortly thereafter inviting the public to upload their own videos. But it wasn’t always what people associate it with now — it actually began as a short-lived dating site, where singles could use videos to introduce themselves and state their romantic criteria.

YouTube, c. 2005. Source: Wayback Machine

But once YouTube turned its focus to general video uploads (which seemed to take effect by June 2005), it was part of a series of developments that showed the growing credibility of the online user. With ample resources already built for writers, developers were starting to address other content creators.

And it wasn’t just developers who were lending credibility these online users. In March 2005, blogger Garrett Graff was the first to be granted White House press credentials.

That might have been when the line between news reporting and blogging began to diminish, which some attribute to the launch of the Huffington Post that May. It began as what one case study a “political forum” — and the Washington Post called it a “group blog” in a 2007 profile — but is today one of the highest-profile content aggregators.

Huffington Post is largely a mix of syndicated material and original content from staffers, columnists, and unpaid bloggers. Visit the website, though, and you’ll land on a page of global headlines, lending the visual impression that it’s a news outlet.

It comes as no surprise that one of Huffington Post‘s co-founders, Jonah Peretti, went on to co-found BuzzFeed. Though BuzzFeed wouldn’t refer to itself as a content aggregator — it instead identifies as “a cross-platform, global network for news and entertainment” — it contains a similar vast range of content and, despite having an editorial staff, anyone can post to the site.

These newer platforms raised the question: “Is it a newspaper, or is it a blog?” And as the 21st century progressed, the answer to that question wouldn’t become any clearer.

2006-2007: The rise of microblogging and rules

The start of life in 140 characters (or less) began in March 2006, when Twitter co-founder and CEO Jack Dorsey sent out the world’s first tweet.

just setting up my twttr

— 🚶🏽jack (@jack)
March 21, 2006

It was the introduction of microblogging — sharing stories, news, and other types of content in the smallest format possible. (And these 140 characters will soon look different — check out Twitter’s looming changes.)

Microblogging continued to gain momentum in February 2007 with the launch of Tumblr — yet another blogging platform that encouraged users to be brief. It was built, wrote former CNET reporter Josh Lowensohn, for those “who feel they may not have enough content or time to write a full blog, yet still want to write and share links and media.”

But with the introduction of short-form, real-time information sharing also came increasingly visceral communication. There would be countless mean tweets, as well as harmful comments left on blogs. It got to a point where, in March 2007, new media mogul Tim O’Reilly proposed a Blogger’s Code of Conduct in response to threatening comments that a friend had received on her blog. The rules were as follows:

1. Take responsibility not just for your own words, but for the comments you allow on your blog.
2. Label your tolerance level for abusive comments.
3. Consider eliminating anonymous comments.
4. Ignore the trolls.
5. Take the conversation offline, and talk directly, or find an intermediary who can do so.
6. If you know someone who is behaving badly, tell them so.
7. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say in person.

It showed that the blogosphere had come a long way since the 1998 introduction of Open Diary. Being able to comment on blogs was becoming less of a novelty, and more a point of contention. Several years later — in 2013 — the Huffington Post finally took a cue from rule #3 on the code of conduct, banning anonymous comments on its content and requiring commenters to link their feedback to a Facebook profile.

2008-2011: Blogging Dark Ages

During this period of four years, there weren’t many major events that propelled how or why people blogged.

There were a few developments of note, however. In January 2009, the White House blog debuted.

Later that year, the film Julie & Julia premiered, which followed the success of one food blogger whose online work eventually became a book. It was one of the first pop cultural references to the professional success of bloggers, and stood to inspire others — by 2010, 11% of bloggers reported earning their primary income from blogging.

Google also made some changes that would impact bloggers in 2011 with its rollout of the “Panda” algorithm change. Its purpose was to lower the rank of sites with what Moz called “thin content,” which hurt bloggers producing content that Google deemed to be of lower quality. A lot of that had to do with bloggers having a lack of inbound links — a link to your website that comes from another one. (My colleague, Lindsay Kolowich, wrote more about that here.) Without many sites linking to these blogs, Google’s algorithm would begin to interpret them as less relevant.

2012: Medium is founded

In August 2012, a co-founder of Pyra Labs — the creators of Blogger — Evan Williams, created Medium: One of the newest blogging platforms.

Today, Medium is more than that. People can use it to write and publish original content, like most other blogging platforms. But Medium is continuing to blur the line between news reporting and blogging. In fact, on its website, the company describes itself as serving up “daily news reimagined, straight from the people who are making and living it.”

It was a notable introduction of decentralized content: A concept that allows users to share their work that has been published elsewhere on a content creation platform. That’s different than sharing links on social media, for example, where limited content is displayed. Instead, the full text and images of the work are shared, with the original author and source credited, on a site different from its origin.

It might sound kind of confusing and pointless. But my colleague, Sam Mallikarjunan, explains the benefits of doing something like that in his article, “Why Medium Works.” In sum: Medium has roughly three million viewers, all sharing and reading content. Does your blog have that kind of reach? If it doesn’t, you can reach Medium’s vast audience by syndicating your own content on their platform, drawing more attention to your work.

The same year that Medium launched, LinkedIn introduced its Influencers program, which recruited notable business figures to guest blog on LinkedIn’s publishing platform. Eventually, that platform became open to all LinkedIn members in 2014 — HubSpot’s Ginny Mineo discussed that development here, and how it fit into the “self-publishing pie.”

Though LinkedIn’s platform worked a bit differently than Medium’s — users can’t re-post full bodies of work in the same seamless way on the former — it does provide another outlet for people to share original content with an audience much larger than they may have received on their own domains. HubSpot’s VP of Marketing, Meghan Anderson, writes more about the positive outcomes of that kind of strategy here.

Last month saw the latest development of the blogging realm — the creators of WordPress announced they would be rolling out the .blog domain. Until November 9, users have to apply for one of the highly-coveted domains. I tried applying for one, and found out that it’ll cost me $250 for a combined application and renewal fee. If for some reason I don’t get it, I’m told I’ll get my money back, or if other people apply for it, we’ll all have to bid for it in an auction.

But here’s the cool thing about .blog — even though it was made by the creators of WordPress, you don’t have to use the WordPress platform in order to build a blog on that domain.

“The domain registrations are open to anyone,” wrote Adario Strange of Mashable, “regardless of publishing platform.”

We’ll be watching this domain unfolds, and are eager to see how it contributes to the evolution of content.

What’s Next?

I don’t know about you, but after diving into the history of blogging, I’m pretty excited to see what its future looks like.

Of course, it probably helps that blogging is my line of work. But I’m certainly not alone. Here at HubSpot, our content team has at least three full-time bloggers, and there are an increasing number of job titles that either indicate or include a blogging as a major function.

It makes sense, when you look at the state of blogging now. It’s an integral part of marketing and content strategy, and has even shown to increase lead flow up to 700% for some businesses.

How blogging continues to change will determine what our careers look like, and I encourage all marketers — corporate or otherwise — to blog on behalf of their respective brands. It might seem like a lot of work, but if the evolution of blogging has indicated nothing else, it’s that the sphere will only continue to expand.

And that’s something marketers should continue to pay attention to — not just the growth of blogging, but how many different interpretations of it exist. Just look at Facebook Live, Facebook Instant Articles, and Snapchat Stories against the context of the dictionary definition of a blog from above: “a web site on which someone writes about personal opinions, activities, and experiences.” Replace “writes about” with “shares,” and you could make the case that most of today’s content platforms — including social media networks — are their very own versions of blogs.

Want to learn more about the future of blogging and marketing as a whole? Check out the latest edition of our State of Inbound report here. 

(Image Credit: 1998-2001, 2002, 2003, 2004-2005, 2006-2007, 2008-2011, 2012.)

How do you envision the future of blogging? Share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below.  

Like many other marketing strategies, inbound marketing transcends B2B, B2C, and nonprofit marketing. Inbound marketing isn’t just about closing sales. It’s about identifying and building trust with people in your target market. Its principles and tactics apply whether you’re a business trying to acquire customers or an organization trying to acquire new members and inspiring a more engaged membership.

The first main principle of inbound marketing is that your marketing has to be all about your member (and potential members). It’s not about you. It’s a little bit about you, but in the sense that your organization needs to publish content and engage with your prospects and members on their terms. Talking to them about the what matters to them, and through the communication channels they prefer, establishes your organization as a trusted authority. Building on that relationship as a trusted authority is how you gain the credibility to inspire them to act later on.

It’s so easy for people to screen phone calls, throw out snail mail, and ignore emails that don’t stand out in their inboxes. The old strategies of sending out expensive, high-gloss reports or paying for on-air ad buys don’t return the same number of prospects as inbound marketing. And let’s not even get started on the fallacies of buying lists.

If you want to bring in new members and keep them active and inspired, delighted members who donate, volunteer, and spread the good word – your organization needs to align its marketing strategies and tactics to HubSpot’s custom inbound methodology.

Using your content and offers to gently push prospects through each phase of the inbound methodology is the second main principle: Every marketing action your team takes, every piece of content it publishes – you should know exactly which persona is targeted, which phase they’re currently in, and where you want them to go. 

As you can see, the inbound methodology has four distinct phases:

• Attract: Gaining the attention of the right kind of people, people who fit your personas and align with your organization’s mission.
• Connect: Encouraging those people to identify themselves to your organization as people interested in hearing more from you.
• Engage: Bringing people into the fold where they do more than consume your content, but become active members or donors.
• Inspire: Continuing to motivate action from prospect and members who’ve already “raised their hand,” showing interest in your organization.

Let’s take a closer look into the goals and common tactics used in each phase. For a more complete deep dive into each of these, take a look at our free guide, Growing and Engaging Your Membership Base.  

Attracting Potential Members

The whole premise of inbound marketing is doing away with the interruptive marketing tactics of the past in favor of attracting your target audience to you. In the digital world, this requires publishing online content that your prospect can’t resist in to attract traffic to your website.

Your starting point is specifying what kinds of information, causes, and concerns interest your potential members. Then determine what resources your organization has to meet those concerns. Are potential members most interested in professional development or business development? Networking? The answers to these questions shape what topics your write about, as well the keywords you focus on in your SEO strategy.

Blogging, paired with a relevant, targeted SEO strategy, is key to getting found in search results and driving traffic to your website. Your social media strategy, such as which sites you’re on and how you interact with your audience there, is also part of the attracting step. You use your social media channels to promote your blog content and participate in relevant (hashtag) conversations, also driving traffic back to your website. 

The attraction phase is all about driving those traffic numbers to your website, where you can then move these prospects into the next phase.

Forging Connections with Your People

Your attraction strategies are working. People are visiting your website and blog. Now you want to know who they are. You want them to identify themselves to you and subscribe to your email list. As you know, once you get their email address into your database, a whole new world of engagement opens up.

But first – you need to give them a good reason and opportunity to share their email with you.

In this inbound step, you want to offer some premium content that they can’t resist. Your premium content could be a report providing in-depth analysis forecasting the future state of your industry, or access to expanded video content of a recent trip by members advocating for one of your group’s policy positions.  Asking them to sign up for your newsletter is also an effective option. 

You pique their interest in your premium content through compelling calls-to-action (CTA) that you place on sign-up forms throughout your site or on landing pages exclusively dedicated to moving visitors to click that CTA and offer their email address to you.

Some of your website visitors will be ready to make a stronger commitment to your organization other than simply sharing an email. It may be their first visit to your website or their 100^th. Either way, you want other CTAs providing them that opportunity. That’s part of the next phase.

Engaging with Prospects so They Become Members

The engagement phase is where you start to grow your membership numbers, where you move people from email subscribers to active members. 

Part of it is including the right action CTAs on your website. You’ll always want a “Join Now” and “Donate Now” type CTA in the right spots on your website, but you can get creative with them. Say a major members-only event is coming up, you can update your membership CTA copy to reflect that. Has there been something major happened in the news, or perhaps it’s time for your annual donation drive?

Of course the purpose of getting prospects into your database in the first place was so you could push out more content that interests and entices them. Email campaigns personalized to subscribers based on how they engage with your website, social media, and other emails, deepen their trust in your organization and strengthen that relationship.

Assessing their online behavior and level of engagement with your earlier content, you can determine when to send an email series that ends with a request for real action, whether becoming a member, making a donation, or volunteering. 

Inspiring an Active Membership

The inbound process doesn’t end when someone actively engages with your organization online. You want to keep them inspired, to continue donating and volunteering. To remain active members who will become some of your organization’s best ambassadors as they share your content and work on and offline to their communities, attracting more people.

In order to inspire, you want to send them the content and CTAs that engage their hearts and souls, that evoke their emotions. As a tech-based methodology, inbound marketing provides a constant stream of digital intel you can gather about your members and prospects. What blog posts they read and share, which ones they ignore, and even what social media channels they engage with. This is all information you can use to personalize the content you send them, increasing the odds it will inspire them to stay engaged with you.

An integral part of being able to inspire your audience is staying on top of what’s moving your prospects and members. So re-assessing your personas, conducting surveys, taking a meta-analysis of what kind of content performs well – these are all tactics that will help you continue to give your audience the content they seek and reinforce your organization’s position as the trusted authority in your area.

 

Measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing is one of the greatest challenges facing organizations. According to HubSpot’s 2016 State of Inbound report, 46% of marketers cited “proving the ROI of our marketing activities” as one of the biggest challenge they face within their company.

The trouble is, when most marketers hear ‘digital marketing analytics,’ they tend to think of the metrics you’d typically associate with a web analytics tool like Google Analytics — traffic, bounce rate, unique visitors, etc.

While web analytics can provide you with a wealth of insight and data into the performance of your website, marketers really need much richer data to understand the impact of their marketing campaigns on conversion rates and a person’s journey through the marketing and sales funnel. Looking at top-level web analytics metrics like traffic is only part of the puzzle.

Enter digital marketing analytics, which offers a much more comprehensive view of what’s working, and what isn’t.

Why Digital Marketing Analytics Matter More Than Web Analytics

So why exactly do digital marketing analytics matter? Quite simply, because web analytics (like traffic and website performance) just isn’t enough. The data web analytics provides just don’t cut it for marketers who need to understand how their work makes an impact throughout the entire marketing and sales funnel.

Let’s face it: Today’s marketing goes well beyond the bounds of your website. It’s the intersection of what happens between your marketing channels and the outcome on the other side that provides the most marketing insight, and your reporting needs to reflect this.

Web analytics measure things a webmaster or technical SEO specialist cares about, like page load speed, page views per visit, and time on site. Digital marketing analytics, on the other hand, measure business metrics like traffic, leads, and sales, and which online events influence whether leads become customers. Digital marketing analytics includes data not only from your website, but also from other sources like email, social media, and online PR.

With digital marketing analytics, marketers can understand the effectiveness of their marketing, not just the effectiveness of their website. Using marketing analytics allows marketers to identify how each of their marketing initiatives (e.g., social media vs. blogging vs. email marketing, etc.) stack up against one another, determine the true ROI of their activities, and understand how well they’re achieving their business goals.

As a result of the information they can gather from full-stack digital marketing analytics, marketers can also diagnose deficiencies in specific channels in their marketing mix, and make adjustments to strategies and tactics to improve their overall marketing activity.

You can spend hours and hours slicing and dicing data in web analytics tools, comparing new vs. repeat visitors month over month, but when it comes down to it, you’ll never have a comprehensive understanding of how your marketing is doing. Marketers have known this for a long time (check out the explosion of people searching for the term ‘digital marketing analytics’ taken from Google Trends below).

There’s no doubt that marketers are aware there’s a deficiency in how they’re able to measure the effectiveness of what they do; here’s how full-stack digital marketing analytics makes up for that deficiency.

Why Digital Marketing Analytics Gives You the ‘Full Picture’

There are lots of things that digital marketing analytics achieves where basic website analytics falls short. Let’s highlight three of the main differentiators:

1. Integration across different marketing channels.

With digital marketing analytics, you have a good, solid look into the direct relationships between your marketing channels. It’s great to be able to see how each of your individual channels (e.g., social media, blogging, email marketing, SEO, etc.) are performing, but the true power of analytics comes into play when you can easily tie the effect of multiple channels’ performances together.

For instance, let’s say you did an email send to a segment of your database. Digital marketing analytics not only tells you how many people clicked through from your email to your website, but also how many of those people actually converted into leads for your business when they got there. Furthermore, you can compare the impact of that individual email send with other marketing initiatives. Did that email generate more leads than the blog post you published yesterday? Or was the content you shared via Twitter more effective?

2. People-centric data on the buyer’s journey.

As we mentioned earlier, a key differentiator between web analytics and digital marketing analytics is that the latter uses the person — not the page view — as the focal point.

This enables you to track how your individual prospects and leads are interacting with your various marketing initiatives and channels over time. How did an individual lead first come to find your website? From Google? Via Facebook? From direct traffic? Is that lead an active part of your email subscriber base, often clicking and converting on marketing offers presented via email? Do they read your blog?

Full-stack digital marketing analytics can tell you all of this and more, providing you with extremely valuable lead intelligence that can help inform the direction of your future campaigns.

Looking at all of this information in aggregate can help you understand trends among your prospects and leads and which marketing activities are valuable at different stages in the buyer’s journey.

Perhaps you find that many customers’ last point of conversion was on a certain ebook or whitepaper. Having this data makes it possible to implement an effective lead management process, enabling you to score and prioritize your leads and identify which activities contribute to a marketing qualified lead for your business.

3. Closed-loop data.

One of the most useful functions of marketing analytics is its ability to tie marketing activities to sales. Sure, your blog may be effective in generating leads, but are those leads actually turning into customers and making your business money? Closed-loop marketing analytics can tell you.

The only dependency here is that your digital marketing analytics system is hooked up with your customer relationship management (CRM) platform like the free HubSpot CRM, for example.

Having this closed-loop data can help you determine whether your individual marketing initiatives are actually contributing to your business’ bottom line. Through it, you can determine which channels are most critical for driving sales. Perhaps you find that your blog is your most effective channel for generating customers, or conversely, you find that social media is really only powerful as an engagement mechanism, not a source of sales.

The Digital Marketer’s Measurement Challenge

Most marketers know they need to be looking at more than just traffic and website performance to get the insights we’ve talked about so far, but why do so many of us still struggle to measure the impact and prove the ROI of our online marketing activities?

Probably because:

• A) We don’t have solid goals in place for our campaigns.
• B) We don’t have the means to successfully measure our success.

Quite often, you’ll find it’s a combination of the two.

The fact is, most marketers need to have a number of different digital marketing analytics platforms in place in order to get all the insights they need to understand their marketing performance and make sound decisions. They gather data about their email marketing through the analytics provided by their email service provider, information about their social media performance through their social media monitoring tool, blog analytics from their blogging platform, and the list goes on.

This fragmented approach to reporting makes it really difficult to connect the dots and make informed decisions about the future of your strategy. The ideal solution is to implement an all-in-one marketing and reporting platform that offers end-to-end visibility on your marketing activities, allowing you to measure everything in one place.

How Digital Marketing Analytics Impacts Your Business

All of the insights, information, and data you can gather from your digital marketing analytics tool(s) is really only useful if you do something with it. The true value of analytics isn’t just to prove the value of marketing to your boss; it’s also to help you improve and optimize your marketing performance — on both an individual channel-by-channel basis as well as an overall, cross-channel machine.

As mentioned above, you’ll also be able to implement closed-loop reporting, making it easier to prove how your marketing efforts are positively impacting your sales team, who are being fed much higher quality leads.

The important thing to realize here is, if you’re relying solely on top-level web analytics, you’re missing out on a lot of powerful data that can help inform your marketing strategy. So when evaluating digital marketing analytics tools for your business, be sure you’re looking for evidence of digital marketing analytics, not just website analytics.

How are you faring in terms of digital marketing measurement? Are your analytics sophisticated enough to effectively measure your marketing performance?