There are so many articles online today that tell bloggers that the best way to generate leads and money from their blog is by using paid advertising platforms like Google’s Adsense, Payperpost, Blogitive or Blogvertise – we are here to tell you there are much more efficient and cheaper ways to monetize your blog! Here at BrainSell we have never subscribed to a service that pays a flat fee for an article advertising their product. Why? First of all – that’s not helpful to our readers, and secondly… it just isn’t as effective as inbound marketing. So, before you invest more money into your blog with paid services read over these quick tips to see how you can increase traffic to your blog without paying a cent.
And if you like what you see here, be sure to sign up for our free webinar on “Making Money with your Blog”, Wednesday, May 22nd at 1:30pm EST
Visibility
To really make money with your blog and increase readership you need to make your blog as visible as possible, there are a few ways to do this. First, enable an RSS feed. You can get an rss feed by going to feedburner.com. Once you create your feed make sure you make the rss logo visible on your blog, it’s a good idea to have the logo at the top of the page and also on every individual post. Relevant and useful blog posts are great – but to really maximize the benefit of them you need to encourage your readers to comment on them. Starting a dialogue between visitors and yourself is another way to prove the value of your service/product/advice and increasing the value of your blog.
Valuable Content
Many blogs offer really valuable insights – but they are very poorly distributed. It is key to share and promote the content that you create. There are several ways to do this, but the best and most visible platforms to post your blog articles are on Facebook, Linkedin groups, Twitter and Google+. Promoting blog posts on social media and networking sites is another way to increase the dialogue and visibility of a blog. If you’re skeptical of the value of social media maybe this will help convince you. In a recent HubSpot study it was determined that 70% of the links search users click on are organic—not paid… that’s a pretty impressive number. Still not sure? Marketers who spent 6 hours a week or more using social media and engaging/sharing content on it saw 52% more leads than those who did not. That is a phenomenal statistic. Just by generating quality and relevant content that is well promoted you can increase lead generation and site traffic without spending a dime.
Don’t Fight with Ninjas
Getting found by Google, Bing and Yahoo goes a long way to increasing the money generated by your blog. Did you know that 75% of users never scroll past the first page of search results? That is why it is important to improve SEO (search engine optimization) at every possible turn. Your headlines matter, a lot. Don’t “fight with Ninjas” said Darmesh Shah, co-founder of HubSpot and author of Inbound Marketing, at a BrainSell event in Boston. Ninjas are keywords that you will never get found with because they are too big. Use keywords that will increase your chances of getting found and improve your SEO.
Frequency
Lastly, it is important to be consistent with your blog in both the frequency you are updating it and the quality of your content. If you are not creating high quality content you won’t gain the confidence you are looking for in your readers. Google and other search engines also determine the value of your blog based on how frequently you update it. So remember, at least once a week – provide your readers with really valuable content!
These are just a few things you can do to really maximize the value of your blog, if you would like to learn more join us for an in depth webinar on ‘Making Money with Your Blog’, Wednesday, May 22nd at 1:30pm EST click here to register.
Takeaway:
Choose a platform you like
Make it VISIBLE
Enable RSS Feed
Encourage Comments
Distribute (linkedin, twitter, facebook, google+)
Add CALLS TO ACTION
Write on Google terms (headlines matter)
“Don’t fight with Ninjas” – Darmesh Shah
Be conversational and to the point
Frequency matters (at least once a week)
HubSpot infographic of the life cycle of inbound marketing:
Have you ever had to turn away potential clients because you don’t have the right solution to fit their needs? That is an incredibly frustrating situation to be in. BrainSell has a new program designed to prevent exactly that. Wouldn’t you love to stop sending customers away because you don’t have the proper tools in your toolbox? Now you can. Become a BrainSell partner today and start increasing your practice offerings and your customer base.
As one of the fastest growing value added resellers in today’s market with growth in excess of twenty percent per year and a growth of forty percent last year alone, BrainSell is excited to announce our new Partner Alliance Program. We designed our Partner Program to benefit both our key vendors and other re-sellers looking to increase their practice offerings to both current and prospective clients.
The best part? Resellers who join BrainSell’s Partner Program will no longer have to turn away customers.
Companies interested in joining our Partner Alliance Program can choose from three partnership levels: Referral, Affiliate and Augmentation. Each individual partnership agreement offers varying benefits and degrees of commitment. The different membership levels are designed to benefit all parties involved. From one time referral bonuses to ongoing renewal commissions on all sales, the partner program is completely customizable to accommodate the needs of diverse companies.
Under our new Partner Program members will also benefit from our marketing campaigns. Partners are also extended pre-sales assistance from a BrainSell account manager and access to certified and experienced implementation consultants. This program offers resellers a great opportunity to extend and widen the scope of their current practice offerings.
Any parties interested in joining the partner program should contact BrainSell directly by calling 978.887.3870, or by visiting our partner alliance page. View full press release here.
BrainSell has an upcoming webinar that we are really excited about. We are hosting a Gmail and SugarCRM integration webinar with our technology partner Collabspot on May 8, 2013 at 1 pm EST. The event is completely free and open to the public. To sign up, you can visit the registration site here.
We have been looking forward to this webinar to share with our clients and fellow Sugar enthusiasts the great integration Collabspot provides between SugarCRM and Gmail.
Collabspot’s Gmail and Sugar integration brings a whole new level of ease and efficiency to CRM and your inbox. Sugar users who deploy Collabspot’s Gmail integration generally see heightened CRM adoption rates by allowing users to access Sugar functionality through Gmail. This seamless integration syncs Sugar information with Gmail, allowing users to instantly view Sugar information associated with the contact. Collabspot also lets users manage opportunities and cases through Gmail without opening Sugar. Users of the integration can also archive emails from Gmail to Sugar, something that Sugar users who use Gmail find really attractive.
BrainSell’s SugarCRM experts, Sonja Fridell and Kevin Cook will be showing webinar registrants the integration live with Jeremi Joslin, Founder and CEO of Collabspot
Many sugar users have been begging for Gmail integration for years and there have been a few mediocre integrations in the past, but Collabspot’s integration is by far the best. We’re very passionate about making CRM easy and exciting for our clients, and we think this app makes Sugar even sexier.
Collabspot will also be introducing Google calendar and contacts integration with Sugar. The integration will then be as robust as Sugar’s own Microsoft Outlook integration.
To sign up for the webinar, which is being held on Wednesday, May 8 at 1 PM EST, click on the following link.
Below are screenshots of Collabspot’s Gmail and Sugar integration.
To see the full press release on this webinar click here. For more information on the integration, visit Collabspot’s website.
Are you a business looking to create more compelling content but struggle to find the time or the resources to do so? You are not alone.
Jim Ward, president and CEO of BrainSell said this of content generation and inbound marketing: “In a world where one in three consumers spends at least three hours online per day, companies increasingly realize the importance of having a strong online presence. Inbound marketing is the key to establishing your company as a thought leader, and generating high quality leads.”
The trick is learning how to get ahead with inbound…
A lot of companies today are outsource their marketing services to inbound marketing specialists. Which is why BrainSell is excited to announce our newest service offerings: a la carte inbound marketing services! What does that mean? We are offering customizable programs to fit the individual needs of diverse companies to create compelling and fresh landing pages, blog posts and white papers – to name just a few. We designed our services to be an affordable option to help any company adopt and succeed with inbound marketing.
A lot of our clientele have heard of inbound marketing but are still unsure of exactly what that term means. Here’s a basic definition – Focusing on the production of quality content, inbound marketing attracts target audiences to a specific company or product, it is the more organic alternative to old school outbound marketing techniques. By aligning fresh and compelling content that a company produces with their customer’s interests, they naturally create inbound traffic to their site which can then be converted to high quality leads. According to HubSpot’s ‘State of Inbound Marketing, 2013’ inbound marketing delivers fifty-four percent more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound leads.
Our new inbound marketing services are completely customizable, created as an alternative to expensive monthly fixed-price programs other inbound marketing companies charge. We are offering businesses looking for fresh blog content, white papers or custom landing pages a less expensive and more effective option. Our inbound marketing experts will tailor make high quality content in any client’s voice. We have an in-house team of content creation specialists in our Boston office who know everything there is to know about inbound. Each of our clients has an assigned writer that they are able to speak with one on one whenever they need.
Businesses take advantage of our inbound marketing package work directly with BrainSell’s marketing team to develop a custom service plan to fit individual budgets and requirements. We are also offering an initial inbound marketing consultation to determine where an organizations’ need is with inbound marketing. Our services range from creating new and engaging blog content or white papers to SEO and social media connectivity.
To read more about our new services and view pricing visit our inbound marketing page by clicking here. If you are interested in getting started, or would like to speak with someone directly about how inbound marketing can help your business effort contact Stewart Sylvester at ssylvester@brainsell.net or directly at 978.887.3870 x207.
To read the full press release on our inbound marketing services click here.
BrainSell is excited to announce that we are now extending our Sage ERP services and training to existing Sage 300 customers of Blytheco.
This is a result of a new partnership we have with Blytheco, and we couldn’t be happier to be expanding our extensive Sage practice. As part of the new agreement, Brainsell will be taking over Blytheco’s Sage 300 (Accpac) Business Practice.
Jim Ward, President and CEO of BrainSell said this of the new acquisition: “I am thrilled to be able to extend our services and experience to Blytheco’s Sage 300 customers, we have a great relationship with both Sage and Blytheco and see this as a great opportunity for all parties.”
We specialize in Sage 300 ERP accounting solutions here at BrainSell and see this partnership as a great opportunity to extend support for Sage 300 products to existing Blytheco customers, while also allowing Blytheco to refine its focus on other Sage ERP & CRM Business solutions.
As Blytheco exited the Sage 300 business, they felt that BrainSell’s focus on Sage 300 would provide their existing clients the comprehensive support needed due to our expansive national resource team. Plus, BrainSell’s Sage 300 engineers are all seasoned professionals with decades of experience.
We are thrilled to recommend to Blytheco’s Sage 300 customers our experience and expertise when assistance with Sage 300 implementation is needed. Any questions regarding this new partnership, training or services can be directed to Jim Ward at 978.887.3870 x201. To read the full press release on this acquisition click here.
We here at BrainSell have been spending the last few days trying to wrap our heads around what has always been the sign of spring and new beginnings. The Boston Marathon and Patriot’s day share a grand history, and being located just minutes from Boston, we were all feeling proud of our city on Monday morning.
Patriot’s Day is a holiday that commemorates the events of April 19th, 1775 – the battles of Lexington and Concord: the first of the American Revolutionary War. We the people stood strong against the massive force of the British and won our independence with the help of international friends and allies.
Our historic Boston Marathon is held on Patriot’s Day; an event all Bostonian’s are proud of. The Boston Marathon is one of the world’s oldest annual marathons where people from all over the globe share in an experience that breeds the feeling of life and springs eternal new beginnings.
Speaking for all of us here at BrainSell, our hearts weep with sadness that such evil could touch the innocence of our American brothers, sisters, daughters, sons, mothers and fathers as well as our international guests whose lives were altered that very day.
If there’s one common thread that stands out, its heroes, bravery and an attitude of resolve shared by all who have gone before us and all who have endured this recent tragedy. How proud we are to be from this great city. To see our first responders and volunteers without thinking, help others who were victims during the very moments when their own lives could have been in danger. To come together and pray for those whose cherished lives were lost and for those who sustained injuries that will have forever changed their lives on a day that had always been one of celebration and fun.
This, my friends is a great city in a great country. Marathon Monday’s tragedy is a reminder that we all need each other, and that people do amazing things to help others faced with heartbreak and disaster.
We at BrainSell will seek ways to help our family here in the city of Boston. Please hug your loved ones and say a prayer or take a moment of silence to think of all those who have suffered a loss on our beloved Patriot’s Day and Marathon Monday.
Often times companies make the decision to jump headfirst into an expensive site redesign without critically analyzing what they could do with their current site first. Don’t fall prey to that costly trap. Take these 7 easy steps before diving in, to get the most out of your site.
There are key tools you can use to maximize the existing presence of a current site that often achieve, in less time and with fewer resources, the same result an expensive overhaul and redesign would result in.
Make sure you know exactly what you are getting into when you tackle a site redesign and ensure you are going into a redesign for the right reasons. You need to recognize and establish that website redesign is a continuous process, and just as much about functionality as it is design. The first thing you will need to do is set you redesign goals.
Misguided reasons for redesigning your website are driven by the thought that the freshness and “wow factor” of a new website will increase excitement over your brand. The main motivations behind website renovations should be to improve the performance of your website. A beautiful website, although intriguing and aesthetically pleasing, is secondary to a functional traffic and lead generating website.
Website assets such as content, inbound links, keyword rankings, and conversion tools are critical to a strong web presence. To preserve your web presence, you must keep track these assets to insure that they are all transferred in the redesign process.
Ensure your assets are in order, make a checklist of the following items:
Determine how many pages you have.
Figure out which pages are most popular/powerful.
Determine how many inbound links you have.
Establish where these links are coming from.
Look up what interior pages have inbound links.
Figure out which inbound links are most popular/powerful.
Determine what keywords you rank for before the move.
Figure out keywords are most effective.
And that is just the beginning of the process that should be undergone before investing in a web developer and engaging in a lengthy overhaul process of your current site. To read the 7 steps you should take to improve your site without incurring expense, download our free white paper by clicking the button below.
The life of a marketer is chaotic. If you are in marketing you don’t need us to tell you that continually managing and creating marketing campaigns, building landing pages, sending emails, working with sales, and filling your sales funnel with leads takes up the majority of your day. If that all sounds a little to familiar for you breathe a little easier – HubSpot just released an iPhone app that will make your job much more manageable.
HubSpot’s new iPhone app allows customers to keep up with high priority marketing tasks while running between meetings or commuting on the train — whether it’s following up on new leads as they come in or reviewing the results of your most recent marketing campaign. Starting today, users now have the ability to publish social media messages via the HubSpot app. No more waiting until you’re at your desk, engage your audience in real-time while on the go.
The HubSpot app includes great must-have features for any busy marketing pro:
Choose when you post your updates – right away or schedule them for later.
Identify the right platform for your message, using a combination of Twitter, Facebook profiles, Facebook pages, LinkedIn personal profiles, and LinkedIn groups.
Craft intriguing messages by including pictures and videos to engage your audience.
Manage your scheduled posts, add or delete status updates on the fly.
Timing is everything in the marketing world – engaging your prospects and leads at the right time with the right message is paramount in inbound marketing. Publishing relevant and valuable content on social media is a great way to engage with your audience while simultaneously building brand recognition and thought leadership. Let’s go through how to get started using the app.
HubSpot’s iPhone app is just another way the company is keeping their clients happy and incredibly productive. Get your most important marketing done in an easy, integrated, and powerful way with their new iPhone app. It’s the HubSpot you love, but now portable for your marketing convenience. To get a free trial of HubSpot today and watch your lead generation sky rocket click here. To find out more about what HubSpot can do for your company contact us directly by email at sales@brainsell.net or phone at 978.887.3870.
Don’t miss out, April 16th to April 18th – save 25% on ACT!
ACT! is now on sale for three days only! Whether you are a new user interested in getting started with ACT! or a current user looking for an upgrade, you have the opportunity to save twenty-five percent on ACT! with BrainSell.
ACT! 2013 has some amazing new and contemporary features, including:
ACT! Permium Mobile: travel light and stay connected to your business with real-time mobile access from you iPhone, iPad or Android device.
Social Updates: Capitalize on added customer insight by viewing a collection of your contact’s last 25 posts made on LinkedIn and Facebook.
Social Sharing: Extend your reach beyond just email by automatically posting your Sage E-marketing for ACT! campaigns to popular social media sites and allowing recipients to share with their network.
Smart Task Enhancements: Save even more time because Smart Tasks now run even when ACT! is closed and automatically update record fields once your selected conditions are met.
Usability Improvements: Benefit from new, intuitive wizards for remote database creation, moving and sharing databases, and a streamlined download experience.
If you are interested in learning more about ACT! or want to take advantage of this great offer contact us by email at sales@brainsell.net, by phone at 978.887.3870 or by clicking on the button below.
What constitutes a good marketing campaign? This is a big question, and one that can open the doors to tremendous business opportunities. We have compiled an ebook that seeks to find the answer to that question and help you implement it across your marketing assets. First, let’s take a look at some indisputable characteristics of an effective and well-regarded campaign.
Educational & Helpful
Educational or informative marketing provides answers to a question, need or concern that a prospective customer might have. This is the marketing that is most useful when a prospect is in a research mode and trying to obtain specific information to get closer to a decision point. How-to blog posts and step-by-step videos, for example, would fit into this type of marketing. The tone of this content borders on the role of consulting and even customer service.
Timely & Customized
In order for marketing to be truly helpful, however, it needs to be available to you at the right time. Think about it: If you are facing a certain challenge and are actively searching for a solution, wouldn’t you love to find it right in your inbox at the moment you needed it most? Let’s say you are organizing a wedding and looking for the right venue. In your research, you might have visited a few websites, but your heart will be won by the company that follows up with you, acknowledging what you are searching for and offering to help. Amazon is the classic example of a website that customizes viewing experiences based on the needs and preferences of its customers.
Consistent in Language and Message
In order to make marketing people love, you need to consider the experience of the user across their different lifecycle stages: from the first time they encounter your brand, through their interaction with your website and content, to the point of converting into a customer, and their long-term success as one. By making this movement across different lifecycle stages consistent and fluid, you remove hurdles and encourage your audience to become evangelists for your brand.
To read more more on how to create an effective inbound marketing campaign – click on the button below to download our free ebook.
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