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Snapchat, the one-to-one group messaging app with more than 150 million daily active users, has earned a reputation for fast growth and innovation.

But despite its success, it isn’t the most user-friendly app we’ve ever used. Many of its best features are so buried within the app that users don’t even know they exist. In March 2016, Snapchat added even more features in their release of a new version, and some of these features have totally reshaped how people use the app in the first place.

For example, did you know that you can use Snapchat to make a live video call? Or that you can add emojis to your Snapchat videos — and make it so they move and scale with objects in your videos? What about the trick where you can save data by turning the app on to “travel mode”?

There are a whole lot of cool things you can do with Snapchat that you may not have known about. But before we jump into them, it’s important that you know the basics. For more on how to use Snapchat — as well as a look at how HubSpot uses the platform — check out this post. 

Already have the basics down? Read on for some more advanced tips and features.

Note: Before getting started, make sure you’re operating on the latest version of Snapchat. At the time of posting, the latest version is 9.33.0.0.

15 Hidden Snapchat Hacks & Features

1) Use Snapchat for voice and video calls.

One of the biggest changes Snapchat made during its most recent update in March 2016 was the addition of a voice and video chat feature. There are two ways you can use voice and video chats: By sending 10-second recordings (of your voice or a video of you), or by “calling” them to start a live voice or video chat lasting any amount of time.

The voice and video call functionality is located within Snapchat’s chat feature, so you’ll need to open up a chat conversation with someone to begin. If you’ve updated your Snapchat app, you’ll see the phone icon and a video icon below the chat box.

To leave a 10-second voice or video message, hold down on the voice or video call icon and it will begin recording immediately. When you release the button by picking your finger up from the screen, the recording will stop and send immediately with no do-overs. In other words, make sure you’re ready to record and send the voice or video message before you begin.

To start a live voice or video call, just tap the voice or video call icon and it’ll begin ringing the other person immediately. If they don’t answer within a few seconds, you’ll see a pop-up notification asking you if you’d like to send a voice or video message instead. These voice and video messages are identical to the 10-second voice and video messages described above.

Here’s a GIF showing what it looks like to live video call another user:

Note: Voice and video chat will only work if both you and the person you’re trying to call have updated their app to the most recent version.

Also, remember that there’s no verification once you tap or hold down on one of the icons — it’ll start ringing or recording right away. (I learned this the hard way when I tapped the video icon accidentally.) Otherwise, it’s a very intuitive and easy-to-use functionality.

2) Turn on two filters at once.

Can’t choose between filters? You don’t have to. To add a second filter to a photo, all you have to do is hold the screen with one finger and swipe left or right with another to find your second filter. (To add that first filter, just swipe your finger left or right over your photo to rotate among them until you settle on one.)

3) Add, resize, and rotate emojis and stickers to your photos.

If you’re looking to dress up your Snapchats outside of the text box, you can add an emoji (or five) and place them anywhere you want on your photo or video.

In addition to the emojis you’re probably familiar with, Snapchat added 200 new stickers in May 2016 that are similar to the stickers that are so popular in other messaging apps like Facebook Messenger. These new stickers are super cute — everything from cacti to snarky kittens to walruses celebrating Hump Day.

To access the emojis and stickers, start by taking your photo in Snapchat. Then, tap on the folded paper icon on the top of your screen next to the “T” text icon. Scroll through the available stickers and emojis until you find the one you want. Tap on it to add it to your photo, and then use your finger to move it around.

You can use two fingers to rotate it or resize it by pinching and zooming. Add as many emojis and stickers as you’d like.

To delete a sticker or emoji, simply drag it to the trash icon, which appears in place of the folded paper icon once you hold your finger down on the emoji in question. 

Another creative way to use emojis on Snapchat? Create your own filters using some of the more transparent emojis by enlarging them until they cover the whole screen.

4) “Pin” emojis to objects in your videos.

In addition to adding stationary emojis and stickers to your Snapchat videos, you can also “pin” — or attach — emojis and stickers to different objects in your video. This allows the emoji to automatically move, rotate, and scale with whatever object you pinned it to.

To “pin” an emoji or sticker to an object in a video, start by recording your video in Snapchat first. Then, tap on the folded paper icon on the top of your screen, located to the left of the “T” icon.

Scroll through the available emojis and stickers until you find the one you want. Tap on it to add it to your photo, and then use your finger to move it, and hold it in one place above an object to “pin” it to that object. 

5) Make your videos go in fast-forward, slow motion, or rewind.

Snapchat recently added features for videos allowing users to make them go in fast forward, slow motion, or rewind. These features work just like a filter, so to access them, record the video first and then swipe sideways to find them.

Here’s how they work:

• Snail icon = slow motion
• Rabbit = fast-forward
• Backward-facing arrows = rewind

Image Credit: TechCrunch

6) Draw in black or white.

You may have noticed that the color palette in Snapchat’s drawing tool doesn’t offer black and white — but that doesn’t mean that you can’t access both of those colors. All it takes is a few quick finger maneuvers.

To access the available colors, you’re used to holding your finger down on the color palette and dragging it up or down. But to access black and white, you’ll need to drag it toward the upper left corner of your screen (white) or the bottom right corner of your screen (black).

7) Change the color, size, and orientation of your text. 

Think you’re limited to white text? Turns out you can actually change the color of your text to whatever you want, including black (see previous tip).

To change the color of your text, start by taking your photo or video, then tap the “T” icon at the top of your screen. Tap the “T” icon again to make the text larger and remove that shadowed background, and then tap the text itself to open up the color palette. Drag your finger along the palette to change the text color.

To change the orientation and/or size of the text, use two fingers to rotate it or resize it by pinching and zooming. You can move the text around to wherever you want on the screen simply by holding your finger on the text and moving it around.

8) Make your text fit neatly in one line.

If you’re anything like me and hate when your text awkwardly goes just over one line, rest assured: You can actually resize your text so it fits neatly into a single line (or however many you’d like).

To resize your text, tap the “T” icon at the top of your screen, then tap on the text to get into text editing mode. Next, use two fingers to pinch-and-zoom to resize it while it still spans the width of your screen.

9) Exceed Snapchat’s text limit.

Even though Snapchat recently extended their text limit on Snapchat to 33 characters, that’s still not always enough. Luckily, there’s a hack that’s been going around for a little over a year now for how to exceed Snapchat’s character limit.

To add extra text, you just need to type your long message into your Notes app (a native app for iOS users), copy it, and paste it into the text field in Snapchat. Alternatively, you can copy a range of blank text in your Notes app and paste it into the text field in Snapchat, and then write in your text.

10) Turn on “travel mode” to save data.

When I first started using Snapchat on a regular basis, I noticed right away that it was draining my battery faster than any of my other social media apps. Thankfully, Snapchat actually has a built-in feature to help conserve your data, in the form of “travel mode.”

When you set your Snapchat app to travel mode, snaps and stories won’t download automatically. Instead, you can choose when you want to load a snap or a story.

To turn your Snapchat app to travel mode, go to settings, which you can access by opening Snapchat, tapping the ghost icon in the top center of the screen, and then tapping the gear icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen.

Once you’re on the settings page, tap “Manage” under “Additional Services” and toggle “Travel Mode” on.

11) Create your own geofilter.

In February 2016, Snapchat started letting anyone — whether you’re a business or an individual — create custom “on-demand geofilters.” On-demand geofilters are filters users can add when they take photos and videos from specific locations.

There are two different kinds of geofilters: a personal geofilter and a business geofilter.

• A personal geofilter promotes a personal event or location like a birthday party, wedding, graduation party, and so on, and you can set them for up to 30 days. They can’t include marks, logos, branding, or businesses.
• A business geofilter promotes a business or a brand, like for an upcoming sale, an ad for a certain location, or something along those lines. Business Geofilters need to meet Snapchat’s Business Guidelines.

Image Credit: Snapchat

To create them, you’ll need to upload an image with a transparent background (or use one of Snapchat’s premade templates), upload it to http://ift.tt/28ZW6zu, pick a date, time, and location for it, and submit it to Snapchat along with your payment. The Snapchat team promises to review submissions within one business day.

The announcement said this feature is available in the U.S., U.K., and Canada for now, with new locations coming soon. You can learn more about how to use them on Snapchat’s website here.

12) Add music to your videos.

Here’s a small tip that can make a big difference in your Snapchat videos. After all, the folks at Snapchat claim that sound is a big part of what makes Snapchat videos so appealing. In June 2016, they claimed that two-thirds of Snapchat’s 10 billion daily video views are watched with the sound on.

Adding music can add a unique touch to your Snapchat videos, and it’s simple to do. All you have to do is play the song you want through your favorite music player app (like Spotify or iTunes), and then record the video on Snapchat while the song is playing. The video recorder on Snapchat will pick up the music and it’ll automatically become part of your video. 

13) Turn the sound off in your videos.

Like I said before, sound is a big part of what makes Snapchat videos unique. Although the default settings for video on both Facebook and Twitter have the volume turned off, Snapchat has done the opposite: its default setting has the volume on.

“The nature of Snapchat, in terms of user-experience, plays into the prominence of sound on the platform,” said Brian Nguyen, group communications strategy director at Droga5. “Users on Snapchat simply expect sound, whereas on Facebook, they don’t.”

But if you’d rather not have sound in your video, it’s helpful to know that there is a way of turning it off. This might be best if you’re recording a video that has unnecessary, loud, or jarring noises that don’t add to the video in a way that you want them to.

To turn sound off on your video, first record your video like you would normally for a Snapchat video. Then, tap the microphone icon on the bottom left-hand side of your screen once so that the sound waves are replaced with an X.

Before:

After:

14) Save a Story as a video clip by downloading it. 

Anyone might want to save a Snapchat Story to view later, but this is especially true if you’re working on Snapchat content for your business so you can show your team the Stories you’ve put together and view them later to see what styles worked well. You can save Stories by downloading them to your device. (From there, I’d recommend emailing it to yourself so you don’t accidentally lose it.)

To save an entire Story as a video clip, open up Snapchat and go to the “Stories” view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top.

Tap the three dots on the far right-hand side of the screen to bring up the download button to the left. Then, tap the download button to save the entire story. 

To save one Snap on your Story as a video clip, open up Snapchat and go to the “Stories” view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top.

Then, tap on your Story and swipe up on the Snap you want and hit the download button at the top of the screen. 

15) Delete single snaps from a Story.

If you’ve published a snap to your Story, you can still go back to it and delete it at any time — even if you’ve published other snaps after it.

To delete a snap form a Story, simply open up Snapchat and go to the “Stories” view, which you can do by swiping right from the default camera view. Your Story will appear at the top. Swipe up on the Snap you want to delete and hit the delete button.

Image Credit: Snapchat

There you have it. We hope these tricks and features help you use Snapchat to connect with your friends, fans, and even customers in a way that’s low-cost, but highly personal and engaging.

Happy snapping!

What other Snapchat features can you add to this list? Share with us in the comments.

As marketers, we all face the same challenge: how do we stay on top of the news and trends that matter to our industry?

Our inboxes are overflowing. Our Twitter feeds never stop scrolling. Our bookmarks folder is stuffed to capacity. And yet, more than ever, our clients and coworkers depend on us to bring order to the chaos.

The more informed we are, the more invaluable and influential we become — always ready with the statistic that makes the deck, the perfect quote from an industry insider, or a genius idea for a new partnership.

The good news? You don’t have to possess some kind of superpower to stay on top of it all. A well-organized system can help you rise to the challenge, and it’s a system anyone can implement with a little help from IFTTT: a handy tool that empowers you to make connections between services and devices you already use (and can help you discover new ones).

These services are called Channels (think: Facebook, Evernote, Gmail, etc.) and users can connect them with simple and powerful “if this, then that” statements called Recipes. Recipes can save you time, automate your life, and, yes, keep you informed and up-to-date on everything you need to know.

To help you get started, we pulled together 35 Recipes organized along five themes. Pick and choose the ones that matter most to you to create a custom system that’ll keep you informed and influential, automatically.

How to Stay on Top of Industry News & Trends: 35 Simple IFTTT Hacks to Try

Catch up on news in one place, at a time that’s convenient for you with these Recipes …

Unfortunately, the number of browser tabs you have open doesn’t correlate to how well you understand your industry. In fact, it can make it hard to actually get work done. Then, instead of finding and reading everything you saw in various places during the day, you’re stuck finishing the tasks you should have done at work.

Find your focus with these Recipes: they’ll help you quickly save interesting articles and content you come across during your day, and send them all to the service of your choice. All the news you need, in one place, ready when you are.

1) Take the first link from any tweets you Like and save it to your Pocket account.

2) Send pages from Instapaper to your Kindle via Gmail by moving them to a specific folder.

3) Create a note in Evernote whenever you save a post in Reddit.

4) Save an article for later in Feedly to automatically save it in Pocket.

5) Star an email in Gmail to automatically save it in an Evernote notebook.

6) Add an article to your Pocket queue to automatically post the title and URL to a Slack channel.

If that’s still too many steps, there are also Recipes that’ll curate a “Read later” list for you based on the topics and mediums you choose. No clicking required: just log in at the end of the day to see what’s been collected.

Think of these as a way to go beyond the Google alert and stay on top of the sources and topics that matter most to your industry.

7) Moves the top posts from r/worldnews to your Pocket account.

Pro tip: Hit “Advanced settings” to put in whatever subreddit you’d like to monitor.

8) Get a daily email update with the top posts from your favorite Reddit subreddit.

9) Save the day’s most Dugg story from Digg to your Instapaper.

10) Get an email whenever Digg publishes a new story featuring a specific keyword.

11) Save stories from a specific section of Time to read later on Pocket.

12) Get an email digest of the week’s most popular Business Day articles from The New York Times.

Tap the global water cooler to stay on top of cultural trends and insights with these Recipes …

You may roll your eyes when you hear about “The Dress” or “Chewbacca mom,” but the fact is that these online sensations become cultural touchpoints.

Today’s viral moment is tomorrow’s brand strategy, marketing idea, sponsorship, or even just a dinner conversation with an important client. These Recipes will help you set up alerts so that breaking news and trends come straight to you as they gain momentum.

13) Get an email from The New York Times whenever there is breaking technology news.

Pro tip: Technology not your thing? Hit “Advanced settings” to change which section of the newspaper you want alerts from.

14) Get an email when content gets more than 1K shares an hour on social media from Time.com.

15) Get an email with the most Dugg video on Digg every day.

16) Get a daily email digest with the top headlines from NPR.

And of course, because nothing on the internet counts until it’s a GIF, there’s a Recipe for staying on top of those, too:

17) Get a daily email with the GIFs that are trending on Giphy.

Keep your team up to date with these Recipes …

Chances are, you’re not the only one who could benefit from a steady stream of curated info. Connect different services to communication tools, such as Slack, to keep your coworkers and collaborators as in-the-know as you are. Setting up Recipes like these is a simple way to show your value as a knowledge worker and make yourself indispensable to your team.

18) Share popular articles from The New York Times with your LinkedIn followers.

19) Send live updates from Twitter to a Slack channel.

20) Send an article to a Slack channel when you tag it with a specific tag in Pocket.

21) Post your Feedly ‘save for later’ articles to a Slack channel.

22) Post Instapaper articles to a Slack channel once they’re moved into a folder.

Find influencers and keep an eye on the competition by tracking Twitter with these Recipes …

Half the battle is finding the right sources. With so much noise out there, how do you keep track of who’s talking about your industry in a meaningful way? Especially when so much of the chatter happens in real time, on social media. These Recipes can help you create groups you can easily monitor and siphon off relevant searches into other services where you can organize and interpret them at your leisure.

23) Add users to a Twitter list when they use a specific hashtag.

24) Add the user to a Twitter list when you Like a tweet.

25) Add a tweet to a Google spreadsheet when it contains a specific hashtag.

26) Get an email whenever a specific user tweets.

Pro tip: You can email up to five email accounts with a Recipe like this.

27) Create a search on Twitter and get a daily email with the results.

Pro tip: Hit “advanced settings” to change the search term.

28) Add users to a Twitter list when they tweet in a specific area.

Share your informed POV with your social networks with these Recipes …

Now that you’re on top of everything, you can start to build a reputation as an informed thought leader. Curate a steady stream of articles and insights that you’ve given the stamp of approval across your social media. It’ll help you build your online influence.

29) Automatically tweet your Diggs.

30) Automatically tweet articles when you tag them with a specific tag in Feedly.

31) Post your Pocket favorites to Facebook.

32) Automatically share articles you tag in Pocket with a specific tag with your LinkedIn followers.

33) Automatically share articles with your LinkedIn network when you give them a specific tag in Feedly.

34) Add a specific hashtag to a tweet to automatically post it as a LinkedIn status update.

(This is a great solution if you don’t want everything you tweet added to your LinkedIn profile.)

35) Automatically share an Inoreader article on your LinkedIn by broadcasting it.

Interested in exploring more Recipes? IFTTT’s collection for marketers is the perfect next step. Learn how to seamlessly cross-post, organize files, manage tasks and campaigns, and much more.

What are your best tips and tricks for staying on top of industry trends? Share them in the comments.

It might be hard to admit: Not every prospect is a good fit for your agency. 

Some don’t have the budget. Some need a mindset shift. And some simply won’t see the value of your services. 

Yet, many agencies don’t find this out until much later in the sales process, sometimes after they have already sent over an in-depth proposal. 

You shouldn’t be spending the same amount of time on every prospective client who calls you up to ask for your help or fills out a form on your website. To understand which clients are the right fit, you need to ask the right questions. This will help you understand if the prospect is in line with your ideal client profile, will be a profitable and successful relationship, and has a strong desire to solve their problem. 

To start qualifying prospects and gain a better understanding of their wants and needs, download the New Client Intake Form. It will help you get started as you evaluate if a potential client is actually worth your time. 

Even though inbound marketing has been a huge success within so many different industries, there are still some companies that are shackled with misconceptions about whether it will work for them. In fact, we have identified 23 myths about inbound marketing that some people may think are true.

Time to bust these myths!

1) “Content creation is inbound marketing.”

There’s a common misconception that “creating more content is all we need to do.” Don’t get us wrong. We emphasize the importance of creating content to give your buyers the information they are looking for, while simultaneously establishing you as the “expert” on the subject matter they are searching for, resulting in building trust in the process.

But content is only one piece of the puzzle. The inbound strategy also consists of marketing automation software integration, website design, SEO, social media, email marketing, and lead nurturing, among others.

2) “Inbound Marketing is an Internet ‘fad’ that will pass.”

Even though inbound marketing is becoming widely known and used among many industries, some skeptics still think it is just an Internet “fad.” Fortunately, that leaves a clear runway for the firms who desire to be the leaders in their industries by taking advantage of the huge opportunities afforded through inbound marketing.

In fact, according to HubSpot’s “State of Inbound 2015” report, “3 out of 4 marketers across the globe prioritize an inbound approach to marketing.” And trust us, once one firm gains the advantages of inbound marketing in your industry, the others will want to follow. Just try not to be the last one to get to bat.

3) “It’s hard to determine the ROI of inbound marketing.”

Somewhere along the way the myth was created that it’s difficult to measure ROI with inbound marketing. Fortunately, this myth couldn’t be more wrong. With the right marketing automation platform, such as HubSpot, it’s easy to track prospects from their initial interaction to a sale.

According to the “State of Inbound 2015” report, marketers who saw a higher marketing ROI in 2014 were more likely to have used marketing automation software. This software allows you to easily check your analytics to see what is working and not working.  Respondents to the marketing survey whose teams checked marketing metrics three or more times a week were over 20% more likely to see an increased ROI in 2015[1].

4) “Digital marketing is a cost, not a revenue generator.”

This myth is actually backwards. The truth is digital marketing is a revenue generator, not a cost. When you think about it, digital marketing has an infinite shelf life. It provides higher return-on-investments over a longer period of time. Outbound marketing, on the other hand, has a shorter shelf life, with unpredictable and lower ROI’s.

According to HubSpot’s “State of Inbound 2015” report, “inbound efforts achieve higher ROI than outbound regardless of company size or total marketing spend.” In fact, every company they surveyed, regardless of marketing spend, “was three times as likely to see higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than on outbound.”  There’s a time for sprints, and there is a time for marathons. Shoot for the marathon. The reward is higher and the distance reached is farther.

5) “Having a website is good enough.”

No more of this “if you build it, they will come” mentality. You have to put yourself out there for people to notice you. Hundreds, maybe thousands of companies are competing with you on the web for your ideal client’s business.

If you are not putting yourself in front of them on that digital screen with valuable information that catches their eye and helps answer their questions, you most likely will not be discovered. And you definitely will not be able to use the most effective and valuable tool to grow your business – the Internet. We no longer live in a world where you can simply have a website and that’s good enough.

6) “My website does not need to be mobile enabled.”

In 2015 Google made this myth so very false. In fact, if your site is not mobile-enabled, your company’s search engine ranking is severely penalized. Google will not even show your website in their mobile search results if your site is not mobile-enabled. And when we say mobile, we mean smartphones, iPads, tablets, Surface Pro’s, and anything that is literally not an actual desktop or laptop. Don’t get fooled by this myth.

7) “A website redesign is all that’s needed to increase sales.”

While a pretty website with all the bells and whistles may be nice to have, if you can’t get traffic to your website, then it means nothing. The digital world outside your website is just as important as the world inside your website. So if you think that by just getting a website redesign your sales will dramatically change, think again.

The first thing you need to determine is what the root problem is that makes you think you need a website redesign. You may find that it’s much more than simply your website that needs an overhaul.

8) “Word of mouth is all we need to make our sales.”

Many companies, and even entire industries, still rely heavily on word of mouth for their marketing and sales. We like to refer to this as the “old school method.” For many “old-school” industries, word of mouth and referrals have been their marketing bread and butter.

While we do not believe you should stop this well-established method, we just know that in today’s world it can no longer be the only method for winning more contracts. In order to advance your firm above your competition, you need to adapt and embrace the digital world’s “word of mouth” methodology.

9) “Marketing is not needed in an RFP-driven industry.”

Relying on RFP-driven sales can be discouraging. Many think that there’s no point in marketing for RFP’s if the process is set. But there’s the catch. If you get your firm ahead of the RFP process, before your “buyers” are filtering whether you meet the qualifications to make it to the “short list,” that’s when you see the shift. Inbound marketing creates that shift and helps you beat the RFP-driven process.

10) “I just need some SEO to get my website found.”

When we conduct a competitive analysis for clients that compares them to their top competitors on all areas of marketing effectiveness, SEO is just 1 of 30 analytical components we look at.

Why? Because SEO is only one factor that affects your company’s visibility and exposure to your audience. This is not to say that SEO is not important. It is very important. It is to say that SEO alone is simply not enough in today’s competitive digital presence to grow your company.

11) “I don’t need a case study to prove my work.”

When a buyer is assessing your products or services, they will likely want to look at examples in which you have performed similar work. Prospects want to know the bottom-line effectiveness of your work. If you give them hard numbers, a detailed description, along with testimonials from past work as a case study, you leave very little room for them to wonder if you are right for that job.

12) “A photo and brief paragraph effectively depicts our work.”

Many companies have a website that feature pictures of their work, with very little substantial information about the actual work that was done. There are a couple of problems with this that immediately jump to mind. Less content typically results in less SEO. Google will not have much information to pull from in order to get your company on the first page of the search results.

Another problem is that when you don’t have enough content, case studies, a compelling value proposition, or specific information of your company’s work, a potential client will not know what you bring to the table that is different from other firms. Why should they choose you? Can you solve whatever problem they are having? What makes you so unique that they wouldn’t consider using another firm? A picture and a brief paragraph barely scratches the surface to answer these questions.

13) “We don’t have the internal resources for marketing.”

Good news! You do not have to be a marketing expert in order to market your company successfully! In fact, some people in highly technical fields are experts in their specialization but are intimidated by the idea of marketing, so they just don’t put much effort towards it. But that’s the worst thing you can do.

The solution? Engage a marketing team to help you. More specifically, retain a marketing agency that specializes in inbound marketing. That way, you know your team will learn your business and market it knowledgably and correctly. So you can do your job, and your inbound marketing team will do theirs. What a wonderful collaboration.

14) “Writing a few posts on social media is enough to get exposure.”

Social media is a powerful tool to expand your company’s online presence. But how you decide what to post is the kicker. What you post matters to those you are trying to reach. And how do you guarantee that your post will reach the right people? Specialized industries have very specific buyer personas they are trying to reach. It is essential to identify who the company’s ideal buyer is and how you will target and reach this buyer on social media with the information that they are interested in and that will get their attention.

15) “Writing something is more important than what you say.”

We’ve all heard the “quality over quantity” advice for some aspect of our life. This couldn’t be truer than in the case of your marketing articles. It’s disappointing when you go as far as clicking on an article because you think they have the answer to your problem, only to find that the article was shallow and pretty much wasted five minutes of your time. Impress your audience by your wealth of knowledge. Impress them and they will come back looking for more.

16) “I have a steady client base already, therefore, I don’t need to invest in marketing.”

We have yet to find a company that has said they would prefer to stay as is instead of growing and gaining more business. That is not to say that there are no companies like that out there. But if you are still reading this article, then we’re pretty certain you are more than interested in growing your company.

If you have a technical firm with highly specialized products, then you may find it difficult to justify investing in a top-notch marketing strategy for such a specialized product or service. But the more you invest in your company’s marketing, the more return on investment you will see. And the more return on investment you see, the more your company grows. Growth comes from actively putting your company in front of your ideal clients and continuously reinforcing your company as the thought-leader in your industry.

17) “Social media is not intended for my industry.”

This myth is the reason why some industries have gained the stereotype of being the “social media wallflower.” What does social media and engagement have to do with getting more projects?

Social media helps position your company at the forefront of your ideal buyer’s mind throughout every stage of the bidding process, even for projects that haven’t been opened for bidding yet. In fact, 97% of buyers use online media when researching products and services in their local area[2].

18) “Inbound marketing is only for very large businesses.”

Inbound marketing is not exclusive to any size business because it produces growth and expansion for all sizes. All companies have room to grow. Especially smaller businesses. The Internet provides smaller businesses with the opportunity to blast past their competition to become the experts and thought-leaders in their industry. To be the trusted provider of information can help transform any size firm into a thriving, prosperous business.

19) “Every lead is a good lead when you’re trying to get sales.”

Now hold on a second. Would you think the same thing when it came to other relationships in your life including your husband, wife, significant other or close friend? We would hope not.

There are qualities you are looking for in them that are compatible with you. In inbound marketing, you’re building a relationship and trust between you and your potential clients. But make sure they are the right fit for you before you invest your time and resources into this potential client relationship.

20) “My industry does not market through the Internet.”

To not market your company through the Internet is a huge disservice to your company’s growth. But many companies believe their clients do not search online and therefore, they do not need to put much effort into marketing their firm online.

Yet 81% of buyers conduct research online before making a buying decision[3]. If you aren’t marketing online, then you just missed out on 4 out of 5 buyers. The odds at that point are not in your favor.

21) “Social media is only for kids and personal use.”

If this myth resonates with you, then you are missing one of the best and most effective marketing tools for your company. In fact, according to the Google ZMOT report, 84% of buyers engage in online information consumption and education before buying.

You might think that number doesn’t apply to you, but let’s look at a few statistics on specific industries. According to the CMO Council Report & Forbes.com, 1 out of 4 buyers use social media to discuss or communicate a recent purchase experience. The same report stated that 84% of all automotive shoppers are on Facebook – with 24% using the site as a resource for purchasing their last vehicle. Even 42.3% of engineers use social media to read articles related to work[4].

Social media is one of the many online resources people go to in order to find information on work-related topics. The power of social media has exponentially surpassed its original purpose when it really was just for kids. Times have changed.

22) “No one is going to read long pages on my website.”

If you are providing quality content with some useful resources related to what your ideal buyer persona wants to read, the length of the web page matters less to them. Many companies write the bare minimum about the services they provide, leaving their potential client with less than ideal information about the firm.

This is especially ironic because long content is also what Google and the search engines want to see in order to rank your page higher in the search results. Make sure your content is meaty, interesting and worth reading, and your visitors and the search engine spiders will love you for it.

23) “I already know what my clients want.”

To know exactly what your buyers want is to have hard data, analytics, tracking and feedback from your clients themselves. If you have that, then you are probably already implementing the inbound marketing and automation methodology. It is easy to think that you know what is important to your clients and what they want to read and see.

But, truth is, sometimes you need to take a step back and ask, listen and watch. Integrating a marketing automation system enables you to see the exact data and numbers that prove what is actually attracting and keeping your clients. Analytics is a powerful tool and a blessing to the marketing community. Tailor your content to what your clients say they want. Not the other way around.

Don’t Get Left Behind!

Busting these inbound marketing myths is just the start. In order to really benefit from inbound marketing you have to decide to make a change and get started.

Consider this:

• 84% of small businesses are using inbound marketing[5]
• Companies are 3X more likely to see higher ROI with inbound marketing campaigns compared to outbound marketing[6]

Gain insight into how your digital marketing plan is really performing against your competitors. We will show you the good, the bad and the ugly. But don’t worry, you will also be leaving with more insight and knowledge about your digital marketing performance, along with a structured, tangible plan to turn that knowledge into fruition. Stop marketing in the dark! It’s time to get a jump on your competition.

 [1] HubSpot “State of Inbound 2015”

[2] BIA Kelsey

[3] AdWeek

[4] Engineering.com

[5] State of Inbound 2015

[6] State of Inbound 2015