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What a whirlwind it was! Mark, Tabitha, Erin, Aaron and I spent last week in Boston at the annual INBOUND conference by HubSpot. This is a solid four days of inspiration, ideas, new product announcements, networking, food truck lunch selections, and miles and miles of walking. We'd like to share with you some of the biggest takeaways and how you and put them into action for your business. As a quick overview, here are the biggest themes and takeaways:

1. Video, video, video.
2. 1 to 1 messaging for the win.
3. Stop disrupting. Cause less friction.
4. Customer service as part of your sales & marketing team
5. Culture matters.

It's probably nothing new when you hear that you need to blog. "What's it gonna do for me," you ask? Well... it can mean all the difference in the number of good leads that you bring in through your website. And that should help you increase sales.

We often hear, "Blogging takes time and it uses my resources." This is true. And there's no point in doing something just to do it. It has to produce results, aka: more leads who better match your target audience(s). So, how do you blog to increase leads? 

How Much of Your Marketing Should Be Digital?

Before you decide on a budget, you should consider what you're trying to achieve. Remember: 70% of a purchase decision is made before someone talks to a sales representative. Because of this, a heavy online marketing presence plays a big part in the overall sales process. 

Whether you're looking for a way to spend marketing budget left for this fiscal year or you're organizing the next full year's marketing plan, we have six recommendations for you that will help you bring in more leads.  These are meant to help you meet your goals of growing leads, and ultimately, sales. But with limited resources, you've got to pick those that can have the biggest impact.  

Maybe you can't afford to incorporate all of these, but try to get bring in a few over the next 6 months and share your successes. That's a sure-fire way to get more budget in the future for things you recommend! Here we go...

Which of these two terms better describes the impact that customers have on your business: outcomes or drivers?

Sales people and marketers from 20 or 30 years ago would likely say "outcomes" without a second thought. After all, their jobs revolved around moving prospective customers down the sales funnel, until the company finally acquired them as actual customers. And that's a great outcome, right?

There is a misperception out there that building a new website will automatically draw in more leads. The first step, before you get more leads, is getting your website to appear at the top of the organic search results. Although the term is "organic results," it's not as simple as planting a seeding and walking away. Just like a plant, you have to do things to your website make sure it grows and stays strong. 

That means that the websites you see at the top of the  search engine results page (SERP) didn't show up by accident. They most likely spent time and energy figuring out what they can do to be the most relevant search result for their potential visitors. So what do you need to do to get up there at the top of the SERP?

Countless members of senior management across companies both large and small, find themselves asking the same question: why do we need to hire a marketing agency when we have dedicated marketing staff?

Whether you have a big marketing budget or a small one, it's always good to hear the word "free."  But are free marketing services really and truly free? Or are they stripped of most of their features so you pretty much have to upgrade? Those are the questions that run through a marketer's mind because, well, we've all been there. 

But, free online marketing tools really exist and they're pretty useful. Fair warning: Since they're not made by a charity there are additional things you can add on and pay for. But the basic tool is very functional for certain purposes, free, and you could stay on the free version for as long as you'd like. There are many options out there, but there are three free marketing tools that we recommend to get you started.

As the popularity of sharing just about anything and everything on social media sites continues to skyrocket, according to at least one elite source, the "slow and painful death of print" is comically referred to as how "Internet Killed the Newspaper Star." Back in the day when they actually played music on MTV, this was a clever and ironic twist on the first video ever aired on this channel, "Video Killed The Radio Star" performed by the Buggles way back in the eighties. (Yes, I can remember that far back.)

With today's more tech-savvy crowd swiping on their smartphones rather than reading a newspaper or flipping through the yellow pages, businesses absolutely have to look at the many many social media platforms. Choosing the right platform for social messages is an important first step. Let's look at some of the most popular social media platforms and who is using them, according to recent statistics.

If we've heard it once, we've heard it a thousand times: Don't judge a book by its cover. But honestly, that really only works with people. And maybe books. When it comes to judging the quality of a company and its products, one of the first things people will do is assess how the website looks to decide if they want to stick around. That's right. Your website design can make or break a buying decision.

Studies have been published explaining that the design of a website is the primary factor in determining if they stay or if they move on.