Many organizations have built barriers between the various functions of their business. Even groups that rely on and support each other’s goals (like Sales and Marketing) are “siloed” in their own worlds and rarely communicate. Breaking down those walls and aligning goals and expectations can be challenging, but there are tremendous benefits as well.

Attempting to tackle your entire content marketing to-do list in one day could be overwhelming. Actually, it would be VERY overwhelming. But if you can commit to doing one thing each day over the next 12 days leading up to Christmas, you'll be on the road to improving your overall content marketing efforts that will have you ringing in the New Year on the right foot!

A good theatrical performance can transport you to different places and times, and it can help you experience situations that you’ve never encountered before. It can change the way think and feel and provide a whole new way of looking at a situation. Brian Stokes Mitchell, Tony Award Winning Actor, says, “That's the magic of art and the magic of theatre: it has the power to transform an audience, an individual, or en masse, to transform them and give them an epiphanal experience that changes their life, opens their hearts and their minds, and the way they think.”

You have a blog. Great. Are you analyzing it? Are you tracking its performance? Do you know if your efforts are paying off? Time is money, and if you're spending time on a blog for your company, that's money. And if you're investing dollars in your blog, you'll definitely want to know if it's paying off!

If you are tracking blog analytics, what are you tracking? Traffic? Great. That's good. But you know what's great and drives sales? Conversions! Here are 5 tips to optimize your blog content so that it helps to increase conversion rates and get more qualified leads.

For many businesses, the primary person that is focused on in both marketing and sales efforts is the key decision maker at a company (or even in a household). It’s easy for us to think about the person who has the most power to say “yes” because that’s what we’re looking for in the first place. However, if we are not also keeping in mind the people who can say “no,” then we could be missing opportunities and hurting our overall efforts.

The Difference Between Decision Makers and Decision Influencers

Let’s start with defining the difference between these two: 

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and we're reflecting on the good things in our lives and enjoying time with family and friends. We're taking this opportunity to share a very important blog post to brag on our team, our culture, and our clients. 

THANKFUL

We're thankful for our team. Bright minds, big hearts, caring souls. The people at LeadG2 and The Center for Sales Strategy work day-in and day-out to deliver the best work for our clients. These people take innovation and dedication to the next level when they are working, then dive head first into family time, community activities, and pursuing their passions when they aren't. At their desks, they bring our products and services to life... they ARE our company. Away from their desks, they are half-marathoners, band members, kid-wranglers, artists, life coaches, and just awesome humans. 

It's Thanksgiving week, which is a time to reflect on all of the things that make you happy, contribute to your success, and help you to grow. So in true Thanksgiving week fashion, we're reflecting on why we're thankful for inbound marketing. 

We believe that a solid inbound marketing strategy paired with sales performance is the key to results, and inbound marketing is the ideal approach to quality lead generation that aligns with a sales team's strategy to deliver the results a company needs for success. Below are just three reasons we're thankful for inbound marketing, and why we believe in, and stand behind, this methodology and the work that we do with our clients. 

I could probably write a blog post on a thousand reasons we love our clients, but I wanted to be a bit more succinct here and share some of the key characteristics that make for an effective and successful business partnership. We’ve worked with all kinds of businesses in many different industries and stages, and yet there are some clear reasons why some have incredible success with their inbound marketing, and some experience subpar results. This is actually a question I get asked often: “What do we need to do to be successful in this partnership?” So, this article will aim to answer that question while also showcasing the clients that make our days enjoyable day in and day out.

Recently, I shared a post explaining how to send videos via email. Due to spam, security, and email hosting features, many email clients do not allow video embeds directly into emails, so with a few easy steps, marketers and salespeople can send video via email, just not with an actual embed. If you are a Hubspot Sales user at the Professional or Enterprise level, I have good news! Not long ago, Hubspot announced a feature that enables salespeople (or any Hubspot user communicating with a contact through the CRM) to embed videos directly into their 1:1 emails! 

This question is asked a lot. And you'd think with it being almost 2019, the technology would allow for this to be a normal practice. But it's not. Due to security, spam, and varying features across email clients, most email clients do not support this feature, so it's recommended that you insert a thumbnail or gif of your video and link to a landing page that the video is hosted on. 

How To Send a Video Via Email:

1. Save the video to a video hosting site.
2. Optimize the video on the hosting site.
3. Save an image or screenshot as the custom thumbnail.
4. Insert an image or gif that matches the custom thumbnail into your email body.
5. Link the image in the email body to the video. 

Below, are some details and further explanation on how to send a video via email.