Your website is the foundation of your business. Studies show that it only takes 1/10^th of a second to form a first impression about a person, and websites are no different. Site visitors form an opinion about your website within 50 milliseconds of landing on your page and decide whether to stay or leave.

That said, it’s no surprise that having a website with poor user experience sets your business up for lost opportunity and wrong first impressions.

Choosing the right inbound marketing agency isn’t something an organization should take lightly, as there are a lot of really great options out there (especially when it comes to HubSpot partners). However, not all agencies are created equal—and even ones who are equally effective might not be the right fit for your business.

Most marketing agencies will be on top of their game, claiming to have mastered digital marketing services. The claim may be valid, but beware, there's a fine line between trendy and truthful. Website design, email marketing, and social media campaigns are all fundamental services of inbound marketing agencies; however, they're just simply marketing tactics. To effectively implement inbound marketing, you need an agency with a comprehensive, strategic program in place. 

As recent as 10 years ago, marketers wouldn’t have used the terms ‘inbound’ and ‘outbound’ to differentiate marketing strategies and tactics. Marketing all fell under one umbrella, and the idea of separating the two was really just in its infancy in many ways.

Because of the vastness of the internet and its ability to connect people to any kind of information they want at any given moment, it has become important to understand not only the differences between these traditional, outbound methods of advertising and promotion, and the newer—largely digital—inbound strategies, but also how these two types of marketing can work together.

As the economy heats up and businesses are growing, business leaders are seeking ways to take advantage of market opportunities and maximize their revenue growth potential. They’re renewing their focus on core competencies and eliminating distractions wherever possible. They can’t afford to devote their most valuable resource – time – to things like processing payroll and managing human resource policies. 

There’s no doubt that these are important tasks, and there are significant risks associated with neglecting or taking short-cuts in these areas. But no entrepreneur starts their business dreaming of someday shopping for the most cost-effective healthcare benefits. 

They would rather solve customers’ problems, build their brands, and grow their revenue. Therefore, more and more companies are choosing to outsource these human resources tasks and functions to professional employer organizations (PEOs) and human resource outsources (HROs).

Most employees know the importance of blogging for business. It’s getting them to create the content that becomes the obstacle. There’s never enough time; they aren’t strong writers; SEO is a foreign language – whatever the reason, getting consistent quality content is hard.

Luckily, we know some tips and tricks that can help make content creation a lot easier – plus, saves a whole bunch of time!

Next week, over 24,000 marketing and sales professionals are gathering in Boston for HubSpot’s annual INBOUND conference, are you ready? 

In our digital world, having the opportunity to network and connect face-to-face with like-minded people is rare – and an adventure our team doesn’t take lightly! Think about it; most business deals aren’t made in an office setting. When you’re shaking a hand to make a deal, it’s typically over dinner, a drink, at an event, or on the golf course. In-person interactions are sacred, and conferences can be the very key you need to help create, build, and nurture lasting relationships. 

When a strategic inbound marketing plan is in place for your company, you should get more leads, get better leads, and improve your overall sales performance. I say 'should' in the previous sentence because there are many factors that play into a successful inbound marketing strategy - and many companies don't have these all in place reap the benefits of this investment. So what are the companies doing that are successfully implementing these strategies to drive more revenue and see great results?

I asked our team to share what is working for the companies who are utilizing inbound marketing to its fullest potential and tell what they are doing to drive success. Here's what they said. 

I talk to a lot of small- to medium-sized professional services firms who are growing. Their revenue is going up in the right direction; they have a lot of activity and are busy. But when they take a step back to dive into their revenue numbers, there's one thing that is very scary.

Outbound prospecting for new business has always been a bit of a numbers game. Years ago, when I first started as a Sales Development Rep, the formula was simple. If you made 100 phone calls, you could expect 10 appointments, and at least 1 of those prospects would turn into a client. The numbers would vary from industry to industry and market to market, but that was the standard everyone was shooting for.

Outbound prospecting is still a numbers game today. Unfortunately, the numbers are just a lot bigger. It requires more phone calls and more emails than ever before to get fewer responses, fewer appointments, and fewer clients. Why is it so hard? What’s changed?

Many people out there think they are blogging. Are they just blogging to blog? Or are they strategically blogging to get results and drive the efforts closer to success?