GrowSocially inbound marketing

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21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
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Grow Your Business with
Inbound Marketing
By John Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially





GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially

ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”

Contents
The Inbound Marketing Low-Down 3
Starting Your Inbound Marketing Strategy 5
Tools and Techniques to Succeed with Inbound Marketing 6
Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation 8
Content is King in Inbound Marketing 9
About John Foley, Jr. 13
About Grow Socially 14







GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS

youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
The Inbound Marketing Low-Down
Every business dreams of “easy” sales the sales where customers virtually fall into your lap!
We all want to find that customer who nods at everything we say. When that happens, we can feel confident
that they believe that we are the experts and that we have the best solution for their needs.
The reality is you likely work hard for every customer you get to that point of the sale. But what if that hard
work really involved laying the ground work so that over time, those customers really do fall into your lap?
With inbound marketing, you can lay that groundwork to establish your business as a resource, as a wealth of
information and the right solution to your target market’s needs. And while it takes some work, it does not
require the outlay of cash that many other marketing strategies take, such as massive ad campaigns.
In traditional marketing, you send your message out to the masses. And hopefully, it gets to your target
market and that target market responds. With inbound marketing, you are still sending a message out, but it’s
less intrusive and much more authentic.
Think about it: when you go to a party, do you want to seek out all the cool kids and chat them up, hoping
they will like you? Or would you like to be the cool kid and have everyone come to you?
Attracting Leads to Your Business
By providing relevant and interesting content, you become the cool kid. Your target market wants to get to
know you. They want to
read your articles. They
want to download your
audio tips. They want to
watch your video clips. As
you develop your content
and make it accessible in various formats, you get your name and expertise in front of your target market in
various ways.
Or course, you do have to make sure your content is optimized for the search engines. You want your
informational pieces to be found via free searches. This doesn’t mean you stuff your content with fluff and
keywords over and over again. In fact, doing so will turn a potential customer off. You have to find the right
balance between using those keywords while providing relevant and readable information.

How Social Media Fits In
You should be sharing your information across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube and
so on. Your target market isn’t going to be hanging out in one place.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
They’re laughing at the latest tweet. Checking out the most recent status update. Sharing that video clip. By
establishing your business identity via several social media platforms, you get the chance to seize the interest
of many more potential customers, and continue to establish your business as a resource. Another benefit is
the ability to interact with those in your target market on a more personal level. Social media invites dialogue
and interaction. By being responsive as well as proactive with your information dissemination, you are
becoming the friendly resource that your target market wants to work with.
Inbound marketing isn’t for the lazy business. It takes time. It takes knowledge. It takes dedication. You need
to provide good, quality content. You need to be search engine friendly and keyword wise. And you need to
establish your business identity across multiple social media platforms. But in the long run, inbound marketing
can take your business sales to a whole other level.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing

John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Starting Your Inbound Marketing Strategy
You already know that the internet is a terrific playing field. It’s the great leveler in that any business can have
a web presence and in many cases the internet reader would never know whether a business is a mom and
pop shop or a million dollar company in a penthouse suite downtown. Any business can and should have a
good-looking, easy to navigate website that appeals to its target market. This website becomes the base for
your inbound marketing strategy.
First up, you need to decide how you will provide information to your target market. Blogging or regular article
posts should be a given. If you don’t have a blogging platform built into your website, you should have that
added. Then you can schedule your posts. Will they be weekly? Daily? You want consistency and timeliness. So
you should establish a schedule that you know you can keep.
Then you need to create a list of blog topics. What kind of information do you want to provide? Think about
what is relevant to your target market. What will they want to read? What will establish you as the expert?
Not a writer? Not to worry. You have several options. Look to someone within your company or perhaps a
trusted colleague. You can also look into ghostwriters to write the content
for you. You want someone to write for your company with a voice that
fits. Not everyone is a wordsmith. And that’s okay. An outsider can write in
your voice and your posts will still be relevant and authentic.
It’s tempting to buy a bunch of articles that are touted to be laden with
key words and optimized for the search engines. But these articles can be

found all over the net. And you’ll lose your authenticity if the internet
reader figures out that your information is not yours.
Start thinking about how you can provide information that utilizes other
mediums. How about some audio files that are chock full of tips? Or what
about getting a guest spot on an internet radio show? An audio question and answer session can be provided
as a downloadable link on your website or posted on your social media profiles.
Don’t forget that amidst all this information dissemination, you need to portray your business personality. It’s
okay to have a post that isn’t all business. Want to post a shout out to a customer? Do it. Want to whip up a
quick video clip showing a couple minutes of your employees hard at work? These sorts of things make you
only that much more real to your target market. And it can give you a definite edge. So as you implement your
inbound marketing plans, don’t forget to show your target market a bit of personality here and there.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Tools and Techniques to Succeed with Inbound Marketing
Now that we’ve defined what inbound marketing is, and what an inbound marketing strategy should consist
of, it’s time to talk about specific tool and techniques that you can use to put it into action!
Your Blog
When you set inbound marketing into motion, you will soon find it is a strategy that thrives on consistency.

The most powerful tool in your arsenal is your company website blog. You control how much information you
disseminate, what information you provide and how often you distribute that information.
Ideally, your blog will consist of multiple short (but not too short) articles on relevant topics that set you up as
an authority in your field. The goal is two-fold:
1. You get readers who learn to seek you out for your expertise and
2. You get others to link to your material…thereby bringing more readers who will learn to seek you out
for your expertise.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral part of inbound marketing. You don’t have to become an
expert in SEO yourself, but you do need to know what the right keywords are and how to use them effectively.
The goal is to increase your search rank. You want to be on that first page of Google and bing results when
internet users search for your keywords.
The great thing about SEO is that it is something that can be tweaked and worked on to help your visibility.
Over time, you will be able to determine what your effective keywords are – what words are bringing visitors
to your site. And you will be able to track links leading to your site.
You can also track links from within your site. Perhaps your current blog post has a hyperlink to an older post
on related material. Instead of using a direct link, you can use a tool that will allow you to shorten the link and
also see the traffic reports on that URL. For example, we use ilnk.me and get a special shortened URL. Later we
can obtain the information on how often the link was clicked, the highest traffic times and so on. Remember,
information is power and you want that information to know what is working and what is not.
Social Networking Platforms
A bit overwhelmed by all the social media platforms out there? Start with two. Perhaps it’s Twitter and
Facebook. Maybe it’s LinkedIn and YouTube. But start with two and build from there.
Don’t assume more is better.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially

21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
You should only have as many social media profiles as you can manage to maintain. And while your main goal
with social media may be to promote your brand and distribute content, don’t forget that these platforms are
interactive. They invite a conversation with the internet visitor. That’s something you never want to lose sight
of.
Online Marketing Audit
Yes, you’ve got a business to run. But even if you use tools to automate as much content as possible, you
should schedule regular “checkups” on each platform to make sure there isn’t a question or comment
lingering.
Also, the technology behind online marketing can change quite frequently and at a faster pace than traditional
media.
Thus, having an online marketing audit conducted regularly may help alert you to new features that you
should be taking advantage of to promote your business.
Integrating Inbound Marketing into the Sales Process
The reality is – visitors are not customers. It’s up to you to turn them into your customers.
As you integrate the SEO aspect with the content and the social media visibility, you will find that you will get
those visitors.
In order to turn them into customers, you need to cultivate them into leads. Content can also play a big role in
that! Your company should have a stash of content in hand that can support the Sales team at each step in the
buying cycle.
Whether you are trying to convert a visitor into an inquiry, an inquiry into a lead, or a lead into a sale, you will
need specific content to help move people through each step.
By doing that, you will be working to ensure that your inbound marketing efforts prove to be a success!

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation
The whole point of inbound marketing is lead generation. You
are taking internet visitors and hoping that they lead to
eventual sales. But you can’t take gigantic steps to get there.
You need to take one step at a time in order to lay the proper
groundwork.
Here are a few points when it comes to inbound marketing
and lead generation:
 You need to create terrific offers. You have to offer
something that your visitors want. It’s like dating.
What do you have to offer your date? Do you have a
tip sheet? A white paper? Some worksheets?

 The value of your offer should be more than the cost to the internet visitor. Now you’re thinking,
“Wait. He just said to give free offers. So how is it costing the internet visitor anything?” The point
here is that your offer should be something of value. And the internet visitor should not be thinking

about the “cost” of providing a name and email address.

 It’s easy to get in the rut of providing information. But you cannot forget your calls to action. You can’t
assume your internet visitor will click on a certain link or indiscriminately cough up that email address.
You have to make a call to action. Tell your visitors what to do. And tell them what they will get when
they do it. Never let them guess and never let them wonder.

 Make it simple. Do not make your visitors jump through hoops of fire to get information from you.
That’s a huge turn off. If you ask for their name and email address, then leave it at that. If you mention
a short survey, keep it short. Don’t sneak in a twenty question and answer session.

 Don’t give them a quick out. While you’re creating that form for your visitors to become leads, don’t
build in back buttons or clear and cancel buttons. Your form should be above the “fold” so that the
visitor does not need to scroll down to enter anything. And there shouldn’t be buttons that cancel out
the lead form – either on accident or on purpose.
Not all leads are created equal. Remember, long term generation is the goal. You are not in this for a quick and
easy turnaround. Inbound marketing typically results in a slower, but more organic way of filling the sales
funnel. You are providing information and being the resource that your leads need in order to convert into
customers.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially

ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Content is King in Inbound Marketing
One of the great things about inbound marketing is that it is inherently less expensive than outbound
marketing. Even if you need to hire a ghostwriter to create content, it’s still likely to be leaps and bounds less
costly than efforts through other channels. However, that does not mean that content creation is a process
that can be skimped on.




Your Content Must Contain Solid, Helpful Tips
If you are going to publish content under your brand’s name, you do need to know your stuff (or your writer
does), and you need to take the time to show others that you know your stuff. This is not the time to load your
website up with fluff.
The reality is – people are looking for facts. They want answers. They want solutions. They have the power of
the internet at their fingertips, whether that is on their computers, their tablets, or their smartphones.
Lackluster information becomes obvious and it’s a turn-off.
Do Not Click “Publish” on the First Draft
As you develop content for your website, flesh out your topics.
Break them down into readable chunks. Too long and your reader will start to yawn. Too short and it may just
lack substance.
By taking the time to review what you’ve typed up before you share it with the world, you will most likely
identify simple changes that can greatly increase the effectiveness of your content.
Talk in a Human Voice About Relevant Topics
Make your content balanced; don’t get swayed by “shop talk” of creating content that is heavy on the
keywords.
Yes, keywords are important — but if you overdo it, your content will not read well.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Your information needs to be relevant. It needs to be timely and helpful. You can do this while still getting
those keywords in there.
Be Willing to Share Specifics
With inbound marketing, you are in control of how much or how little information you share.
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that providing “too much” information is akin to giving away your
grandmother’s top secret cake recipe. Sure, you don’t want to give away the whole kit and caboodle of your
business, but you want to be transparent.
You want to display your expertise. No customer will decide against doing business with you because you
provided “too much” relevant information. But you can bet that many a potential customer is lost to the
business that fails to provide adequate and transparent information.
Have a Strategy to Build Links
One of the pluses when you post great information is that it gets linked from other sources. Links are great.
They provide yet another way to get internet users to come to your site. They are a subtle referral and nod to
your expertise.
So, the more links to your site, the better. In addition, it will help with your search engine rankings, making
you more visible in those keyword searches. In addition, it will help with your search engine rankings, making

you more visible in those keyword searches.
Using Content to Generate Sales
Content reigns supreme with inbound marketing, as it helps with search engine optimization and displaying
your expertise. When you provide relevant content you are becoming a resource that the internet reader can
rely on. This empowers your reader to make the right decision - to work with you! Of course, a visitor doesn’t
immediately turn into a customer. You need to work that lead first.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
Inbound Marketing Checklist
I hope that you found the content within this White Paper helpful. I truly believe that inbound marketing can
your business! If you have any questions about you can apply some of the techniques that I discussed, I’d love
for you to contact our company, Grow Socially.
But before I go, I have one more item that I want to share with you. Below is a checklist that you can use to
reference as you seek to ensure that you are doing all you can to put inbound marketing to work for your
business!
 Website
o Blogging capability
o Is it Search Engine Optimized?

 Blog Posts
o Who will write posts?
 Me
 Employee
 Colleague
 Ghostwriter
o How often will posts be made?
 Consistency is important!
 Daily
 Weekly
 Bi-weekly
 A different, but consistent schedule
o What will my posts be about?
 Create a list of topics
 Break those down into smaller posts if possible
 Try to tie posts into current events
o How will I spread the word?
 Tweet via Twitter
 Post URL
 Facebook
 LinkedIn
 Google+
 Other
 Alternative to Blog Posts
o Audio clips
 Create short audio files

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially

21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
 Guest on radio / internet radio show
o Video
 Look at blog topics
 What can be translated into video?
 Introduce your company
 Employees
 Day to day operations
 Customer Interaction
 Q&As
 Testimonials
 Solutions





GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially

21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
About John Foley, Jr.
John Foley is the founder of Grow Socially, an online marketing company including Social Media. They provide
marketing consulting and delivery services. Created in 2010, Grow Socially, Inc (www.GrowSocially.com) helps
companies with their online marketing efforts, with a focus on social media. These services include discussing
and creating marketing plans, strategies, tactics, and goals that align with your company’s needs.
In addition to his role at Grow Socially, Mr. Foley serves a CEO for interlinkONE, an integrated multi-channel
marketing web solutions company serving the print and fulfillment industries and marketing departments.

John Online
Twitter: Twitter.com/JohnFoleyJr
Facebook: Facebook.com/JohnFoleyJr
YouTube: YouTube.com/JohnFoleyJr
LinkedIn: LinkedIn.com/in/JohnFoleyJr

Visit John’s Mobile Webpage:




Contact John at:
978.674.8081

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially


21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
About Grow Socially

Grow Socially helps businesses and associations with their strategic
marketing efforts that include online, content, and inbound
marketing. Social Media being a catalyst in parts of the strategic
planning. We help businesses and associations reach their target
audience, grow prospects, potential members and provide a sense
of community for its customers/members. From websites to email
programs Grow Socially has a team of seasoned folks and experience
in your business to get the job done.
Grow Socially also provides much needed solutions for your
members to assist them in growing their own businesses.

Contact Grow Socially
Web:

Email:


Phone:
800-948-0113
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