Inbound Marketing Tips from Dharmesh Shah

• Tue, March 30 2010
• Filed under: Social networking and web 2.0

I spoke at Artez Interactive DC today (#artezDC on Twitter if you want to check out the highlights) and while there, I got to hear Dharmesh Shah talk about his new book, Inbound Marketing.  Dharmesh founded HubSpot and Website Grader.  He calls himself a hackrepreneur.  (Full disclosure, we use HubSpot at Network for Good and I was given a free copy of his book today.  I am a fan.)

Here’s what he had to say: “You have a moral obligation to say to yourself, what am I great at, and how do I use new tools to be a superpower at inbound marketing.”

• We walk around in bubbles, isolating ourselves from marketing messages.  We screen calls, don’t open mail, etc.  That means the outbound model of marketing – ie, pushing messages out to an audience – gets screened out.  Consequently, it’s an increasingly expensive way to get to people.

• The better way is to pull in the people who are looking for what you have.  You can do that by pulling people in with creativity, not cash.

• So how do you get found?  You look where people (and you) live – Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, foursquare, Yahoo! Answers, etc.  Your website is your home base where you ultimately engaged people - it’s your center of gravity that takes the relationship you form at these online outposts and takes it to the next step.

• As ye SEO, so shall ye reap.  Optimizing your website for search (search engine optimization) is essential.  It gets you off of the paid traffic morphine drip.  More people, less expensive results.  Keep in mind the Google ranking algorithm - f(n): Context + Authority (which is the number of links and the power of those of links).  By FAR the most weight given by Google goes to authority, so pursue those links!  Get people to link to you!  The longer your website is around, the better – so start a website NOW, even if it’s not great.  These are keys to getting on the first page of Google results and therefore to SEO.  Check how you’re doing using his Website Grader.  That shows how you’re doing in all of these areas.

• Build a blog following: Even if no one on your team can really write and you don’t write often.  (This is the one area I don’t think I agree with him – if you have no time and can’t blog regularly or tell good stories, and you have a horrible blog no one reads, you may be better off using that time to engage with bloggers with a following.  But we measure success differently – I’m looking at donor relationships, he’s focused on SEO.)  He feels like it pays off because people care and want to hear the stories on your blog, even if they are not frequent and old.  He says Google likes it – it helps rankings and drives more visitors and links over time.  Experiment with different kinds of content.  He’s experimented with audio, video, cartoons and how-to focused on his message, because it’s sometimes surprising what format resonates most.  For example, cartoons are their best content – it brings in more people than well-researched articles.  He said it also works well to take a stand.  A strong point of view works best – not a crafted, protected message.  There is usually bigger perceived risk than real risk to breaking out and getting attention by taking a stand.

• Create content that is hot: You need to ask yourself, am I getting out things that could actually get spread and go big?  You’ll fail if you don’t at least try to do this.

• Social media: The value of social currency and capital is huge.  That’s why social media is worth our attention – injecting our cause into online social relationships is powerful. 

• Twitter: Even normal people use Twitter now.  His twitter.grader.com tool to measure your relative authority.  The basics are: bio in profile (76% don’t bother to do this! Yikes!), have an Avatar, put up your background, etc.  Then say meaningful, useful things – which too many people on Twitter don’t.  Don’t tweet for tweeting’s sake.  That’s how you build reach.  Like your email newsletter, it’s one more way to build relationships.  He uses TweetDeck to manage Twitter.

• Retweeting: He analyzed 100 million tweets to see what gets retweeted.  Most retweeting happens at midday.  Words matter: the terms please retweet helped.  Blog, post, free, social media were other hot terms.  If you use self-reverential words (I, me), you are far less likely to get retweeted. 

• Find the stars: Once you’re engaged in social media, look for high social capital people.  For example, on Twitter, find the people who are stars tweeting on your issue.  Engage them.  You can find those people with his twitter.grader.com tool.

• Facebook trick: Cheap market research on Facebook - Go to footer, ads, and pretend you’re placing an ad.  When you do that, Facebook tells you how many people on Facebook match your demo profile.  Nifty way to do your homework to see if this is where your audience is.

• Google Wave: It’s Google, so don’t ignore it.  But you’re safe on ignoring it now because it’s so complex and hard.  Google Buzz - it’s too early to say, he says.

• FourSquare: He’s a fan because it connects your physical presence to your online presence -  a useful thing for nonprofit events.  It’s a great way to set up virtual locations for events.

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