The funnel only cares about the funnel

The marketing funnel - a thoughtless, lead crunching machine that doesn't care if it was a slow month or if your budget had been decreased, it only cares about one thing and that is what goes in! 

What is this intimidating marketing tool I here you whisper...

Quite simply the marketing funnel is a structure that should be applied to your marketing activities with a focus on pushing leads through your marketing process. 

Time for some visuals:

Now everyone interprets the funnel in a different way, a lot of people incorporate it with their sales process and therefore have a lot more stages but for today and as these are the main stages that I focus on every day I'm going to stick with these three;

1. Awareness - How do you get people to notice you, it's a big bad world out there with a lot of companies vying for attention

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the awareness stage (website views / unique page views etc) 
• What content is going to get you noticed and be the main driver of this stage (tweets, blog posts, LinkedIn updates etc)
• Generally this stage is non-committal you just want to draw them in

2. Engagement - time to get their details but don't be a try hard

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the engagement stage (new contact details submitted, all contact details submitted, number of downloads etc) 
• What content will the lead want to submit their details for  (Whitepapers, How to guides, Webinars etc)
• Generally this stage is all about commitment you want their details but be subtle

3. Evaluation - time to reel them in

You need to determine 

• What metric is going to be related to the evaluation stage (free trial, request a quote etc) 
• What content will entice the lead to take a call to action, generally I would suggest feature based content showing how your product/service can help
• Generally this stage is when you pass them over to Sales to work their magic

When you are creating your content and marketing activities be sure to cover each stage of the funnel. If you don't have content see if you can re-purpose or create some new content. 

What I find so handy about the funnel is that it lays out what the metrics are, what you need to be achieving, creating, promoting and aiming for in order to keep the organisation, I mean funnel, well oiled.

I would strongly recommend implementing a marketing funnel if you haven't already done so as it gives the whole team a clear focus on what they have to achieve. 

But remember - those that live by the marketing funnel die by the marketing funnel! ;-) 

Claire

Content is King!

If you are in marketing and you aren't utilising your content as a marketing tactic then you are missing a trick.

Content is currently the currency of the internet. It is what consumers want; they are looking to be educated, for best practice tips, for how to guides etc. 

With so many channels of communication available to marketers you have the ability to reach consumers on different levels through different tones with content marketing.

Yes some people do feel that when they hear “content marketing” they think of hours of time spent creating it or  their budget swallowed up in outsourcing, but you can be clever about how you push out your content.

Take for example a whitepaper. The easy way to promote it is to post it on all the channels you are using with a generic post telling people to download it, you could then write a blog post explaining what the whitepaper is about and how you can download it. That can be re-used again and again and you can sit back and hope that somebody engages with it.

Or you can take that whitepaper - read it!! (I know I am guilty about not fully reading the content we create) After you've read it go back and with your twitter hat on see what nuggets of knowledge you can extract. Do the same for LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook etc. When you have the social channels covered moved on to what you can blog about from the whitepaper, aim for 2/3 blog posts that cover different topics from that whitepaper, and if you create an email newsletter you can write an article on the whitepaper as well.

Say for example you manage to get the following out of one whitepaper:

·         3 blog posts

·         1 newsletter article

·         10 tweets

·         2 LinkedIn posts

·         2 Google+ posts

·         2 Facebook posts

You will then have 20 chances to reach a consumer with that one piece of content. If like me you mix up what you are promoting in the month and you apply this same methodology to all of your content, you are setting up your publishing calendar very nicely.

So don’t be afraid of content just be smart about it and if you are already pushing out content then now might be time to do a quick audit on what content you have and how you are promoting it – which is exactly what I am off to do!

Social Platform Tutorial - Google+

I would guess that 60% of my day is dedicated to social media, in both my work and personal life I am always on it. As I am so consumed by it I sometimes take for granted that not everyone has the interest or the time and I sometimes have to stop myself from screaming at them - WHERE IS YOUR PROFILE PIC!!! 

So with that in mind I have decided to create a few tutorials on how to set up and optimise a number of social platforms. I know there are plenty of these out there but I find a lot can be far too complicated so I aim to simplify them and just get straight to the point - what to do on day one!

First up - Google+

There has been a lot of talk in the recent years that Google+ is the next big thing (and not just from Googlers!) In my opinion it is yet to take off. I use it, probably not as much as I should or would like as I am a fan of it. And to make life easier with Google I would suggest you create one - if you are a business, SET ONE UP NOW!!!

A few pointers when populating your G+ Profile 

1. Picture 

• Please make sure that you have a profile picture (can be an image/cartoon) anything is better than the google avatar 
• Add a cover photo too - again get away from the generic google look

2. Fill in your About section 

Story 

• Tagline - Something snappy or that summarises you in a few words
• Introduction - Think of it as an elevator pitch, in one line show yourself off
• Bragging Rights - Any awards, achievements or anything you want to boast about 

 Really the story section is all about promoting yourself

Work 

• Skills - Make sure to list as many skills that support your role as possible 

Links 

• Be sure to add any other social platforms you might have, Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook etc 

3. Settings

You can adjust the settings on any of the sections in the About section, 

         1. Open the section
         2. Click on the Audience tab 

         3. Select who you would like to see that info 

        

Don't forget to add people to your circles - you can start with me if you'd like 

You’re all set now to start posting!!

Thanks for reading this and populating your profile, any questions feel free to 

ask me at any time - Claire :-) 

DMX Dublin

The DMX is Irelands leading digital marketing conference, I was fortunate to attend which took place this month in the Aviva Stadium. The event was jam packed with sessions split up into four themes; Acquisition, Conversion, Engagement and SMEs.

There were some fantastic speakers lined up and as with any conference laid out in this format I couldn't attend every session that I wanted to, twitter didn't help with the session envy either! I spent most of my time in the Engagement room as at the moment that is my focus in work. 

The highlight of the day in my opinion actually came at the very start when Tessa Barrera (on twitter here) spoke to us about her involvement in the Red Bull Stratos event (if you don't know what this is then you must have been living under a rock but here it is for you) How she envisions social media was refreshing and really made me stop and think about how I see it. Apparently it was also her very first time speaking! Honestly she seemed like a pro! My main takeaway from Tessa was this quote "Social media is every day" to me it sums up that social isn't just a fad or a channel but it is now ingrained in our every day lives.

Other main takeaways from the day were:

• People are asking for what they want but brands are not listening or not answering when their product fits
• Mobile cannot be taken for granted or forgotten, it's all well and good to have a mobile responsive design at first but be sure to come back and create your site around the mobile experience - not everything works as well on mobile as it does on a desktop
• When creating videos focus on the emotion of the content not the creative
• Start thinking of social as a means of delivering your business outcomes
• Segment, segment, segment - when it comes to keywords don't view them as a one size fits all, segment the words that relate to your products/services/content

These were what I took back to the office from the DMX, overall it was a fantastic event. I would have preferred more sessions with a B2B focus but then that is because that's the market I'm in.

If you weren't at it but fancy having a look check out the twitter stream for some nuggets #DMXDublin

If anyone was at let me know your thoughts and what was your highlight!

Thanks for reading, Claire

Howdy!

Welcome to clairebergin.blogspot.ie a new Irish marketing blog. My aim in setting up this blog is to discuss all things marketing, share what's tickling my fancy, the latest trends that are worth a look at, interesting marketing blogs, vacant roles in Ireland and anything else that pops to mind.

A quick introduction from me, I'm a digital marketing executive in a software company down in Cork with my main marketing interests being inbound marketing, social media and keeping sales happy :-)

I hope you find this blog useful and that you get in touch if you feel like it. I'm on twitter @ClaireBergin

Thanks, Claire