Brick and Mortar Business and Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing Overview and the Central Hub Strategy

August 17, 2011 By admin Leave a Comment

Inbound Marketing and Social Media:

A Recipe for Success Online

Inbound marketing is successful when you view it in terms of a combination of permission marketing and search driven marketing. In other words, you want to be where your potential clients are….when your potential clients are searching for your services. If you are not, you will be ineffective and your inbound marketing strategy will fail.

Central Hub: You must view your website in terms of a central hub. The idea is to drive as much traffic as possible to your hub by creating excitement, authority, and, above all, interesting content.

Video: We are in the video generation most online advertising and inbound marketing is driven by video. That is where the lion’s share of your clients will come from. An effective video campaign will send your business soaring, a lackluster video campaign will kill it!

Blogging for Business: Blogging is crucial! In fact, the static website of just a few pages is on its way out…if not dead already! The website that is primarily image-based, particularly when it comes to text, is worthless. You will derive ZERO SEO value from images alone. When a website full of images is crawled, it shows up as blank. A balance of text, images, and video is essential. Blogging also develops interest in your business and provides a line of communication between you and your clients that is invaluable. Blogging is essential for any business trying to grow and relate to their target market long term.

Viral Video and the Rest of the Online Guru Hocus Pocus: Forget about viral! Yes, that’s right…forget about it! If you intentionally set out to create a viral video or make some other sort of online media go viral, it will almost certainly fail! Focus on quality content that will interest your target market and get shared.

Note: I have videos and articles on websites around the world and very few, if any, would be considered viral. But they all get shared and it all translates into backlinks, subscribers, social media connections, clients, and friends.

Yes, friends!

Redirects: Redirects can be useful but if you are hoping to derive any SEO value from a super domain name that you are only using as a redirect to your not-so-great url, you are wasting your time, money…and a quality domain name too boot!

Articles: Articles accomplish several things at once. Articles establish you as an authority in your niche, they deliver backlinks to your main hub (although this is changing), and they drive traffic to your main hub. Even with the new shifts in Google’s algorithm, article marketing is still a crucial component of a solid inbound marketing strategy.

John Jones: Who is your target market? What does he look like? What are his interests? How does he dress? You must be able to SEE John Jones in order to relate to him…or Jane Jones for that matter!

Social Media: Social media is also essential! All of the components of an effective inbound marketing strategy must work together, in concert, if you are going to succeed. This is not an optional strategy, it is imperative if you want to compete in today’s market. Linkedin, Twitter, Facebook (both personal and a fan/business page), YouTube, Dailymotion, Break, Viddler, Foursquare, and others are the key to social media success. Ping.fm is the best way to reach most of the core social media sites in one blast, Hellotxt is another, and XeeSM.com is the third. If you integrate these social media hubs into your overall strategy it will make your job much easier.

Warning: Do not use social media as a vehicle to spam your followers or you will kill any suucess you may have otherwise achieved! Additionally, if you spam, all you will have following you are fellow spammers…and they will eventually unfollow you as well!

Additional Blogs: Google’s Blogger, Squidoo, HubPages, and others are also useful and can be tied directly into your social media hubs for constant updating! These should be included, as they are virtually effortless to maintain and they do end up on page one!

Keyword Research: Most keywords are insignificant. Many businesses beginning to explore inbound marketing focus on keywords that drive ZERO traffic to your website. The key is to know not only what terms are searched for, something Google does well, it is crucial that you know which keywords get the most CLICKS! Click through rate is crucial.

Google Analytics: Metrics are also key! You must know who is visiting your website and where they are coming from if you are to develop and intelligent and effective, long term inbound marketing strategy.

Testing: A/B testing is probably the simplest and most effective, at least when starting out. Long term strategies can be added from there.

Consistency: An inbound marketing strategy must be applied daily if it to work! Social media can be time intensive at first. The longer you do it, the easier it will become. Blogging must be done at least 3 times per week for best results. A video blog with adequate text to introduce and provide a synopsis of the video can make all the difference in terms of SEO value.

SEO: SEO or search engine optimization is a long term strategy! Yes, there are certain tweaks and some people believe Google provides a bit of a nod to new entities on the web…but that is debatable. Google is King Kong on the Internet right now and they are changing their algorithms constantly. The best strategy is one that is keyword rich and delivers superior content.

Video, Article, and Social Media Delivery Software and Memberships: There are several delivery systems in the form of membership sites and software that can be used to make you job easier. It is crucial to use these systems in order to reduce the amount of time you must spend on tedious projects…or get your employees in on it and have them do it. In the long run, your labor costs will kill you. It is best to use the membership sites available to you. We will review many of these as we progress.

Video Creation: There are several video sharing and video creation sites online. Animoto is simple and effective for creating short, interesting videos. Vimeo, Viddler, YouTube, Dailymotion, and several other video sharing sites will allow you to add your own logo and message for a fee. It is well worth it long term. While placing YouTube videos on your blog and website may be cost effective short term, long term you want to create your own identity without relying on YouTube. I have integrated my Flip MinoHD videos through Camtasia to Screencast. Others use Amazon’s video platform and still others Brightcove. Whatever the platform, make sure you learn all the ins and outs, so it remains trouble-free and cost effective!

In the next article I will discuss several sites I recommend you set up profiles on and how to do it for next to nothing and with little effort. Your profile should be keyword rich and your image a professional and/or easily identifiable one. In addition to Google’s Keyword Tool, I sincerely feel that Market Samurai is the class online at this time. Check it out for free & then upgrade if you like it!

I love it!

Discussion: We will discuss any questions or comments you may have and raise here. I hope this helps you as you begin, at once, to create your new and Ultimate Internet Image…or help others to get there!

I look forward to sharing ideas and/or working with you and believe we can position you to do great things in your niche as a brick and mortar business, an online business, or as an Internet, inbound marketing consultancy!

John Zajaros (Jack)
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
440-821-7018 (cell)
johnzajaros@gmail.com

Note: Just assume links are affiliate links and that way there can be no misunderstandings!

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Group Online Buying: The Inbound Marketing Consultant’s Challenge

January 27, 2011 By admin 1 Comment

Inbound Marketing Consulting and the Group Buying Phenomenon

Group Online Buying: The Downside – Long Term

As the various group online buying sites pop up and local businesses rush to cash in on the latest online gold rush, inbound marketing consultants are in a difficult position.

This video is a conversation that attempts to explore the tenuous position local businesses are in!

As the race for riches takes off once again and historical precedents are seemingly ignored, many businesses attempting to break out of the recent economic downturn may in fact be placing themselves and their livelihood at risk.

Inbound marketing consultants have a responsibility to be well-informed and advise appropriately as the debate continues and intensifies. I hope this helps as group online buying may may alter the face of e-commerce for quite some time to come.

Contact me anytime and I would love to get your take on all of this here. Please leave a comment below, perhaps answering the following question:

Do you think Group Online Buying is here to stay and what are the risks to small and medium-sized local businesses?

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
440-821-7018 (cell)
216-712-7004 (office)

Note: GM seems to be recovering. However, whether you call it a bailout or a buyout, there can be little doubt that Pandora’s Box, opened several decades ago with the introduction of massive incentives certainly contributed to the collapse of a worldwide institution; and, the end of this corporate giant, as we once knew it, is history. The question? Will history repeat itself? Surely, the way the automobile industry conducts business at the retail level has been profoundly and forever altered. I get a bit worked up at times, particularly when David meets Goliath and the outcome is still in doubt. If you stay with me until the end of the video, I think you will understand why! Thank you for stopping and don’t forget to leave your thoughts.

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Filed Under: Brick and Mortar Business and Inbound Marketing, Group Online Buying, Groupon and Google: Group Online Buying, Inbound Marketing, Local Businesses the Real Loser in Group Online Buying, The Historical Implications of Incentivization and Long Term Local Business Survival, The Ultimate Internet Image, Ultimate Internet Image, Ultimate Internet Image and Inbound Marketing, Uncategorized Tagged With: Groupon and Google Battle, Groupon Google LivingSocialDeals, The Perils of Group Online Buying

Understanding Inbound Marketing: Learning from Outbound Marketing Methods

August 13, 2010 By admin 2 Comments

Applying the Lessons Learned from the Yellow Pages

and other Traditional “Offline” Media

There was a time when a Yellow Pages marketing position was the sales job to have in the United States; and, the competition for those jobs was fierce. I have a friend, a very good friend, who is an incredible advertising salesman. In fact, he got me my first advertising and marketing position.

“Dave” and his wife worked for a Yellow Pages sales and marketing firm selling ad space througout the Midwest. They made a comfortable living and had a very nice life together.

Aside from the traveling, a Yellow Pages advertising sales position was a great gig to have. I was offered a job with the company they worked for and, mainly because I just can’t stand that kind of “living out of a suitcase existence,” I turned them down. There were times afterwards when I regretted the decision, mainly because of the money, but it all worked out for the best.

As a result of my relationship with “Dave,” I learned a lot about the ins-and-outs of Yellow Pages marketing. It was a real eye-opener. You see, Yellow Pages ads are sold once a year. Or at least they were. The sales and marketing team was dispatched to an area and they’d canvas business-to-business.

However, unlike cold calling or other door-to-door methods, they almost always got in to see the owner or the general manager; and, they were almost never treated as a nuisance. No gatekeeper issues to speak of.

The message was simple:

“Take-it-or-leave-it, we’re the only game in town!”

Quite the sales pitch.

The only game in town!

Remember those days?

Some of you will.

It was the hayday of sales and marketing in the USA. Interestingly, because they were the only game in town at the time, it was pretty much a laydown…a full-price transaction with virtually no resistance.

Significantly, there weren’t a lot of off-shoot or generic brands of the YellowPages at the time, a few local editions and some small town directories, but that was it.

Consequently, the competition that would later “mess up a really good thing,” particularly for the Yellow Pages, the marketing company, and the sales people had yet to appear.

So, businesses were at the mercy of the sales and marketing team; and, from year to year, retail businesses, from mom and pop stores to big chains, service businesses of every kind (i.e, plumbers, HVAC, etc) to professional practices, would guard their territory make sure they were available for the annual sales visit from the “Yellow Pages guy or gal.” Their terminology, not mine.

If not?

They might lose their ad space for an entire year. And that was a huge gamble, often resulting in a very big hit to the bottom line.

Like I said, it was a great gig.

But all things change and, so it is said, all good things come to an end…or at least evolve.

In retrospect, the change from outbound advertising to inbound marketing has been dramatic. However, while the transition was taking place, the changes seemed more like minor irritants than a major shift in the sales, advertising, and marketing landscape.

Isn’t 20/20 great?

In the course of twenty-five years we have watched a major institution crumble before our eyes because, like many of the offline institutions, it failed to make the transition from an old media, outbound marketing model to a significant online presence by way of the right inbound marketing strategy.

The Yellow Pages failed to react early to what appeared to be a growing trend, perhaps believing they were well-established and indispensible. The same sort of failure to react can now be said of the New York Times, Barnes and Noble, American Express, the music industry, and now, seemingly, the book industry.

And old mentor of mine used to say:

“If you think you are irreplacable or indispensible? You are!”

He was always fond of saying:

“If the President of the United States passed away tonight, they would have his replacement sworn in and doing the job by morning. So, how irreplacable and indispensable are you?”

Good point!

In the case of the above-mentioned examples (and there are myriad of other examples):

Yellow Pages to the Internet — and on to “Googling”
The New York Times — the newspaper industry failed to react in time and is now feeling, and reeling from, the impact of the Internet — to the Huffington Post
Barnes and Noble fails to buy (or become) Amazon — the entire book industry has failed to make the transition – now fighting digital books
American Express fails to buy PayPal — eBay does for 1.5 billion

And so on!

Is the Yellow Pages phone book dead?

Not entirely, but I think we have yet to see its next incarnation. There is still a sizable percentage of the world that does not use the Internet, so their will always be a demand for a Yellow Pages-type directory. However, the YellowPages of the future will undoubtedly look very different from the one we have come to know for the last several decades.

The Marketing Takeaway: Nothing is set in stone and failure to adapt to current marketing trends may have a profound impact on your business’ sales, profitability, and ultimately its future.

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
Skype: johnzajaros1
216-712-7004

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Filed Under: Brick and Mortar Business and Inbound Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Inbound Marketing Strategies, Outbound Marketing Inbound Marketing and the Ultimate Internet Image, Outbound Marketing Lessons, The Ultimate Internet Image, The Yellow Pages and Outbound Marketing, Ultimate Internet Image, Ultimate Internet Image and Inbound Marketing, Understanding Inbound Marketing, Understanding Outbound Advertising versus Inbound Marketing

The A through Z of Inbound Marketing: B is for Backbone

August 11, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Building an Inbound Marketing Consultancy

If A is for Attitude then B is for Backbone!

In The Inbound Marketing Week in Review: What are the A, B, Cs of Inbound Marketing we spoke of the “A” letter resources, concepts, and ideas, those adding to our knowledge-base as we strive to build an inbound marketing consulting firm and serve our clients.

Naturally, many of the terms discussed can be applied to Internet marketing, online business across a variety of niches, MLM, and, of course, “offline” businesses, particularly as they seek to make the transition from outbound to inbound marketing and build an Internet image or online presence.

NOTE: We will continue to refine the list as we work toward September 1, 2010. Anyone who is a subscriber to the UII Newsletter and email list on or before August 31st will receive a free copy of the completed ebook on August 31, 2010. So subscribe today!

So, here are the B resources, concepts, and ideas, in part. Please leave your comments and ideas below. Have we left anything out? Can you add something to our list? Please feel free to offer your feedback and, if appropriate, we will attempt to include it in the final draft.

B – Backbone: Internet consulting, online business consulting, or inbound marketing consulting, whatever you choose to call it, is not only about knowing the Internet, it’s about being able to understand and relate to the “real world,” the offline business world…and sales.

Having a backbone is a must!

By that I mean, you must be able to take rejection. And, you must be able to say no yourself when it is necessary. Meaning, you must be wise enough to walk away from a sale and a big check when you know a prospective client is the wrong fit for you and your consulting business. That takes backbone, particularly when you are first starting out.

Additionally, asking for the kind of fees you will require, and deserve, will take backbone…at least until you have some experience and feel confident in your abilities. Interestingly, once you understand that you are, in fact, able to deliver a service few others can, that you are indeed an expert, it will no longer take backbone to ask for your fee. Your knowledge and service will convert either a nonexistent Internet image or one that is all but nonexistent into The Ultimate Internet Image. And there aren’t a lot of people or businesses that can do that.

While it is true that the more knowledgeable you become and the more experience you gain, the stronger your backbone will become, you must demand it of yourself from the get-go or you will be swamped with the wrong clients paying you far too little for your services…and you will be miserable.

Make sure you learn to say no and walk away from the wrong situation.

And, whether you listen to Malcolm Gladwell or Perry Marshall or Lee Milteer, they are all telling you one thing:

“Listen to you gut!”

And I would add:

“Use your backbone!”

B – Blogging for business is a necessity. I’ve heard some of the experts, even experts who blog themselves, call blogging for business “lame.”

Or, more accurately, they call business blogs lame.

Perhaps many are?

However, if you set up your inbound marketing clients’ blogs properly and fill them with quality content on a continuous basis, it will pay huge dividends in terms of interest, traffic, and sales for your clients.

Blogging is one of the most effective traffic and relationship building tools available online today. I would argue that the distinction between a website and a full-function blog will disappear in time, perhaps entirely within the next five years.

All you have to do is look through the Studiopress blog themes available or look at what some businesses have done with Thesis themes to understand that I am on the money here.

For inbound marketing purposes?

The blog is a better vehicle for traffic generation than a static website, particularly when starting out, for a myriad of reasons.

If a static page is required?

Many premium blog themes will accommodate you and your client. All-in-all, the blog is the way to go and the amount of traffic and page rank you can gain for your inbound marketing clients in a relatively short period of time makes this one a no-brainer. At the very least, if your client is set on their static website, as is? Integrate a blog immediately and link the two sites or integrate a blog into the exiting website. The boost in traffic and page rank will be significant and will convince your client to go along with other inbound marketing strategies as time goes on.

In today’s online world, if your client isn’t blogging, they might as well be rowing across the Atlantic with one arm.

They will never get where they are going without all the resources available to them…and that includes a professional looking blog!

B – Blogosphere is a term implying that all blogs are made up of a single universe, the blogosphere, and that they are all connected in one community. The blogosphere also refers to various interrelated blogs and their connections. It is an interesting concept and there seems to be at least some validity to it.

One example of the power of this phenomenon is when a video, article, or blog post goes “viral,” spreading across the Internet rapidly, seeming to take on a life of its own.

Interestingly, Jon Hoover recently mentioned how blogs and the blogging community were once like a small town and now the same community is more akin to a major city. I would argue the same is true of the blogosphere. What was once a relatively small and unique, interactive community has spilled over its boundaries and the new manifestation has very little in common with what once was.

The blogosphere of today is a universe apart from the blogosphere of a decade ago.

B – Brand Awareness is a reflection of how many consumers are aware of a particular brand. One of the most important purposes of an inbound marketing campaign is to enhance brand awareness, to increase the overall, positive response to a client’s product or constellation of products. Ultimately, brand awareness is measured using brand recall, brand recognition, top of mind awareness, and other metrics beyond the scope of this post.

However, on a related topic, it is important to realize that many of the sales that are currently being attributed to social media may be more a consequence or at least a reflection of brand awareness.

Two companies, one with brand recognition and one without, will have very different results given the very same social media marketing campaign. We will explore this relationship in greater detail as we go but it goes without saying that brand awareness is central to online success and inbound marketing is crucial for brand building and brand recognition…or whatever you want to call it.

B – Backlinks are also known as incoming links, inbound links, inward links, and inlinks. Backlinks are incoming links to a web page or website and are one of the most important factors in determining a website’s ranking. Backlinks are also a reflection of who is paying attention to a certain website or page within a certain website. Building incoming links can be one of the most challenging tasks for an inbound marketing firm because they take time and the creation of quality content…and a little bit of luck.

As important as the backlinks, perhaps more important, are the quality of the incoming links.

In other words, where the link is coming from is more important than the link itself. A link from a less than reputable site can have an adverse impact on ranking.

Links for sake of more links is gnerally a bad strategy.

B – Benefits: Sell the benefits.

Or, as an old mentor of mine used to say, and I have said time and time again to the people I mentor, coach, and train:

“Sell the sizzle, not the steak!”

If you are selling air conditioners in August?

Sell the feeling you get when you first walk into an air conditioned house after cutting the grass on a 90 degree day. Do not focus on the digital controls or the ease of operation.

Help your inbound marketing client picture a full dining room from 4:30pm until 7pm. Let your client hear the phone ringing off the hook for pizzas at a typically slow period of the day because of an email blast. Get them to see the new car, the kids in college, and all the rest of the benefits of your inbound marketing expertise.

Don’t tell your inbound marketing prospects about autoresponders, email marketing, and social media profiles…they could care less!

Sell them the sizzle and then they (and you) will have steak!

B – Blogger (blogspot) is Google’s free blogging platform and, while many feel it is not worth the time or the effort, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, I have heard people say it doesn’t pay to utilize this platform. Significantly, Google allows anyone, and that includes inbound marketing firms, to build an unlimited number of blogs for an unlimited number of purposes. If you are not using this resource, you are missing out on a valuable inbound marketing tool. Do not simply build mirror sites but build blogs with content and then encourage others to link to them and through these blogs back to your clients’ primary site. Imagine one hub connected to another and another, all of them interconnected and pointing links and driving traffic back to your central hub. And, you can do it all for next to nothing!

B – Business Networking is a marketing method that has been around a lot longer than the Internet. Networks of like-minded business people come together to seek and share opportunities and ideas with one another.

There are several well-known online business networking sites, to include:

ecademy
LinkedIn
Plaxo
Xing
Biznik
XeeSM
And a myriad of others (you can see how many by clicking all of the above links!)

Inbound marketing firms not only use these networking sites to build their consulting businesses but to build up their clients’ businesses as well.

Social media has transformed business networking.

Some of the most responsive social media sites online are business networking sites like ecademy and LinkedIn.

These sites and others should be an integral part of your inbound marketing strategy…not only your’s but your clients’ as well.

B – Brick and Mortar Businesses, what I often refer to as traditional brick and mortar businesses, are the primary focus of many inbound marketing consultancies because many brick and mortar businesses are having a difficult time making the transition from outbound marketing to inbound marketing. Many brick and mortar businesses have been sold a bill of goods and have been convinced that all they have to do it put up and website, maybe spend a bunch of money on SEO, and the rest will take care of itself.

The “If you build it, they will come!” days are over.

Interestingly, some marketers refer to brick and mortar businesses as “offline” businesses…but that is less than accurate, particularly in 2010.

Brick and mortar businesses are generally considered to be businesses with a physical address in the “real world” and not just an address in the virtual or online world…as “online” or Internet businesses do. When most people think of brick and mortar businesses they think of some sort of retail establishment or a service-oriented business, like a plumbing contractor or an HVAC contractor, any sort of a business with a physical address doing business face-to-face with customers, clients, or patients.

The Ultimate Internet Image serves brick and mortar businesses, assisting them in the transition from outbound advertising to an inbound marketing. UII creates an inbound marketing strategy tailored to the needs of their “offline” clients and appropriate for the individual client’s competitive business environment. It is crucial to understand both the Internet and the “offline” world if we, as inbound marketing consultants, are to properly serve our clients.

It takes empathy, understanding, knowledge, and experience to develop an inbound marketing strategy that works for our brick and mortar business clients!

Next, we will jump to the Cs of inbound marketing. Please add your thoughts and ideas below. I would love to hear from you and it will add immensely to the final product, an inbound marketing guide we can all share in.

Thank you and please comment below!

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
216-712-7004
Skype: johnzajaros1

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Filed Under: Blogging for Business, Brick and Mortar Business and Inbound Marketing, Business Blogging, Business Blogs, Inbound and Internet Marketing, Inbound Marketing, The A through Z of Inbound Marketing, The Ultimate Internet Image, Ultimate Internet Image, Ultimate Internet Image and Inbound Marketing, Ultimate Internet Image Consulting Tagged With: Backlinks, Blogging for Business, Blogosphere, Brick and Mortar Business, Business Blogging, Business Networking, Inbound Marketing, Social Media and Business Networking, The A to Z of Inbound Marketing, Traditional Brick and Mortar Business and the Internet

Inbound Marketing Consulting and the Central Hub Model

July 31, 2010 By admin Leave a Comment

Inbound Marketing, the Central Hub (spot), and The Ultimate Internet Image

The focus of recent blog posts here at The Ultimate Internet Image (UII) has been on the initial inbound marketing consultation and competitive assessment with prospective clients. However, while discussing much of what we cover with new UII clients, we left out a critical concept, perhaps the most important component of all:

The inbound marketing concept I left out is the one that pulls the entire strategy together, providing its emphasis and its focus.

I refer to the above mentioned inbound marketing component as the central hub strategy or, in its complete form:

The Ultimate Internet Image’s Central Hub Strategy!

For those of you serving small to medium-sized, traditional brick and mortar businesses, service organizations, service-oriented businesses, associations (non-profit and for profit), and professional practices; and, in particular, for those of you plying your trade in the inbound marketing consulting field, the name probably sets off bells and whistles. However, the name for the strategy was developed independently of, and before I personally knew anything about, the King Kong of inbound marketing – software – firms:

Hubspot!

Great ideas spring to mind everywhere and at once…or simultaneously. It has happened throughout history in business, science, manufacturing, inventing, and myriad other pursuits. The Theory of Evolution, the telephone, the telegraph, and many other theories, ideas, and inventions were independently developed because, whatever it was that was created, it was the next, logical step in science, manufacturing, academia or whatever; and, it was obvious to many individuals separately, and at once.

In other words, great minds think alike!

The idea of an inbound marketing central hub, a hub spot, is also the logical, next-step in a line of thinking that was at first revolutionary and has now taken hold and become accepted across the Internet and around much of the developed and developing world when we discuss and apply marketing strategies.

You have, no-doubt, viewed several of the central hub spot models various inbound marketing consultants and inbound marketing consulting firms have developed for social media, specifically, and the various segments of inbound marketing, generally.

Here are a few variations on the inbound marketing central hub model:

This is one of the better images for illustrating the inbound marketing central hub strategy model. This image, from FredCavazza.net, shows the arrows pointing out from the center. They need to point in with the attention, focus, and traffic being driven inward towards the center hub.

This social media landscape image is one of the better ones I have found. There are a myriad of images, as many images as artists and the inbound marketing consulting firms hiring them to create them. This image can also be found at East One Marketing.

Unfortunately, the inbound marketing central hub model images are still all over the place when it comes to focus and message! I am certain this will change in time but for now we have to take the good with the bad. Hopefully, distinguishing between the former and the latter and choosing wisely.

The inbound marketing central hub strategy seems to be heading in the right direction with the starfish imagery. Simple, attractive, and easy to understand, this is a much better visual representation of the central hub model.
This image, an interesting take on the central hub model and visually attractive, has also made the rounds. I am acknowledging both although provenance appears to belong to WebGuild.org with permission to use the image being granted to Cyberconsulting.com

I suggest that the inbound marketing central hub image directly above is on the right track and is visually attractive…while simple and easy to follow. Some key ingredients are missing but it is effective and closer to the idea of an inbound marketing central hub than many others being offered today.

This image can be found at CyberNet Consulting Inc: Innovative Technology Solutions, as well as at WebGuild.org.

The Inbound Marketing Central Hub Strategy Meets NYC Transit. Source is Intersection Consulting's Flickr photostream at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting

This image is attributed to Mark Smiciklas, MBA of Vancouver, BC. Mark is a Vancouver Marketing Consultant. Mark has several very interesting images added to his Flickr photostream, noted above, and he invites visitors to his marketing consultancy’s site to find him on Facebook and to view is LinkedIn profile. I would also recommend Mark’s slideshare Social Media Strategy, it is quite good.

This is the more conventional take on marketing via The Social Media Syndication Network flowchart.

This image appears to belong to David W. Crompton, Special Brands, Amsterdam, Netherlands http://specialbrands.net/2009/02/26/friendfeed/

The trouble with attribution is provenance. The LocalGoogleGuru has offered this by way of his Flickr photostream. He appears to have been granted use of (rights to) the image by Daniel Crompton (Technorati profile) and his General Musing blog, mentioned above. I want to make sure both men get credit for the work. Their links are embedded here.

The flowchart has been around since Christ left Chicago, to put it bluntly. The flowchart has it uses and has been around for a long time because people learn linearly, from A to Z. Consequently, the flowchart has remained a mainstay of many marketing presentations. I would argue that for our purposes, for inbound marketing consulting presentations, the flowchart may not be as effective as the inbound marketing central hub model.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

The flowchart meets the central hub model: Where do we go from here?

The Social Media Process: Can you follow this? Will a client be able to? Unfortunately, we see a lot of this being offered. I have doubts as to whether or not Damien Basile was serious or kidding around with us but this kind of thing shows up...a lot! http://www.flickr.com/photos/damienbasile/3629544077/sizes/z/in/photostream

As you can see, I hope, we are heading in the wrong direction. The image above is what I call Social Media Flow Chart Run Riot! Based on one of the comments under this image on Flickr, this may have been offered in jest (?). This sort of thing shows up a lot in inbound marketing and social media presentations.

Who can follow this?

If you were making a presentation to a client who is attempting to make head or tails of the Internet, will they know what this all means?

Probably not!

The Mind Map is an interesting adaptation and it often looks more like art then a marketing tool. This image came from http://www.flickr.com/photos/zipckr/4688416205/sizes/z/in/photostream

The Mind Map is an interesting phenomenon. In many ways it reminds me of Where’s Waldo? I have received mind maps so intricate I actually had to use a magnifying glass to see everything because when I tried to enlarge it, it grayed out on me.

Some are very cool, like this one.

This image came from the Flickr photostream of Zipckr. From Zipckr’s photostream I ended up at a very cool mind map site with mind maps that truly seem more like art.

Check out the How to Twitter and How to StumbleUpon Mind Maps!

As you can see, when it comes to imagery, we are still all over the place with hard to grasp charts, graphs, maps, etc.

There are many more social media and inbound marketing graphs, tables, flow charts, and the like.

Check them out by “Googling” the search phrase:

Social Media Images

The main problem is that, not unlike many of the inbound marketing strategies I have come across and/or heard discussed in the past year or two, inbound marketing strategies and the methods used to communicate those strategies are indeed all over the place.

Why?

I think has to do with the following:

Miscommunication between the client and the inbound marketing consultant. This goes back to communicating the message, verbally and visually!
Fear of loss! Rather than stand up to the new client and tell them a new direction is required, that to simply add the new media on an old idea is folly and will result in a Meatball Sundae, many inbound marketing consultants will take the line of least resistance and go along with what the client wants, even if it is wrong, rather than lose a client. In most cases, you will lose the client anyway, particularly if you can’t stand up to them and convey your message. So, it is much wiser to stick to your guns early than to flee a sinking ship later and be blamed for it.
An unqualified inbound marketing consultant. While this is becoming increasingly rare as the incompetent are weeded out by a sort of natural selection, incompetence does exist and it gives the entire inbound marketing consulting industry a black-eye.
An inadequate budget to get the job done properly. Yes, organic listings are free…but a solid and effective inbound strategy is not. Do not make a sale just to make a sale…it will come back and bite you. And, there is a very good chance you won’t get paid.
A client unwilling or unable to see the big picture and move beyond an outbound marketing mindset to take advantage of the new media and effective, search-based inbound marketing strategies…including the inbound marketing central hub model.

The fact is, an inbound marketing central hub strategy makes sense, it is easy to understand, and it works!

Inbound marketing is about targeting the proper audience or target market and then creating interest through an interesting and effective USP (unique selling proposition), developing quality content, and increasing brand awareness in the marketplace.

The new media is one of the most effective ways to get your client’s message out. An inbound marketing central hub strategy will focus the attention inward, towards the principal Internet real estate or, to put it bluntly, the money page. Then, it is about conversion strategies and metrics.

If an inbound marketing strategy is ultimately developed in such a way as to focus traffic, leads, and so on in towards the center, the center being the central hub where the call to action can be found, again, the money page, then it is all about creating a landing page that converts.

And that means an integral compenent is the inbound marketing strategy is testing.

Metrics!

Test! Test! Test!

As stated, The Ultimate Internet Image Central Hub Strategy entails developing a central hub, first in the form of a central site, and then driving traffic to the hub from various points online (also hubs and we will develop this over time) to the money site and the to the traditional brick and mortar business, association, organization, or professional practice.

Once the business has acquired the client’s information, either as a result of some of enticement or as part of the sales process, the final stage in the inbound marketing strategy begins:

Short term and long term relationship building!

The chief aim is to get the prospect to opt-in to a lead capture system of some sort or drop them straight onto a sales page of some sort (depending on the type of client you are dealing with). In every instance, the idea is to convert the inbound marketing prospect into a client and then develop a client for life, some say “customer for life,” by attending to the relationship building process after the sale.

In effect, the relationship begins with the initial transaction and a relationship builds from there.

The entire process is a step by step relationship building one that:

Delivers a client from somewhere online
Places them in a sales funnel that makes it easy to track, measure, and convert
Produces an initial transaction
Builds on the initial transaction creating a client for life

Once we are able to do all of that, we have an inbound marketing central hub strategy that works.

Drop them into the funnel, direct them toward the central hub, convert them from new prospects into clients, and then build a relationship that created life-long clients, patients, donors, and friends.

We will discuss how to take a prospective client through the sales funnel in an upcoming post. We will also discuss how to tap into the greatest resource your inbound marketing client owns, their database of current clients, clients who have trusted them in the past and, even if sorely neglected, will do so in the future if they are contacted and developed properly.

An aside: Many of these articles, blog posts, and videos are just the tip of the iceberg, as I have noted before. If you are an inbound marketing consultant or someone considering the sales and inbound marketing services of The Ultimate Internet Image, please feel free to contact us anytime. We will be happy to discuss any of these topics at length and in much greater depth.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and please leave a comment.

Your feedback is appreciated!

Contact UII anytime!

John Zajaros
The Ultimate Internet Image
Lakewood, Ohio 44107
Skype: johnzajaros1
216-712-7004
440-821-7018 (cell)

Note: I have made every attempt to provide proper attribution for source materials and images. I have actually added links I didn’t have to in an attempt to be fair. The links are to sites claiming to own the rights to and/or have permission to use the images below. I have taken every precaution and have not used some images I would have liked to because I could not get in touch with the individuals or companies I needed to in order to obtain permission. If you know of better images or would like to have me post your images here in a subsequent post, I would be happy to do so. Just leave a comment and I will get back to you quickly. Thank you!

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