The Thomas Blog

Ready For GDPR? If Not, It Could Cost You

Roughly nine out of every ten B2B businesses use inbound marketing to connect with potential customers. If you’re one of these companies, then a new set of privacy guidelines — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) — will change the way you collect, store, and use the personal information you obtain.

Unfortunately, only 22 percent of U.S. companies have a GDPR compliance plan in place. With the regulations set to go into effect in just a few months, it’s imperative for you to understand the guidelines and take steps to ensure compliance. If you don’t, it could cost you.

Here’s what you need to know:

Why PPC Should Be Part Of Your Inbound Strategy

Successful inbound marketing campaigns should encompass a range of different elements, on various platforms and channels. While certain aspects, like blog posts and email marketing campaigns, are widely used and extremely well-known, others may be less familiar to marketers just starting out. In particular, PPC (pay-per-click), an advertising model that targets users with company ads based on their web search queries, can be an extremely valuable marketing tool. 

Through PPC, advertisers pay only when a user clicks on their ad; these clicks increase site traffic and, ultimately, also increase the chances of converting these leads into buyers. Unlike outbound marketing, which involves pushing your message out to potential customers, PPC is inherently inbound, since it brings potential customers in.

As with other inbound marketing methods, PPC has a high success rate and is quickly growing in popularity. In fact, 74% of small businesses have invested in PPC or plan to do so in the near future. Unsure if PPC advertising is right for you? Below are five compelling reasons you should consider incorporating this strategy into your marketing campaign.

An Order Optimization That Increased Visitor Registration Rates by 46%

Purchasing products or services online requires either a quote request process or an e-commerce store, and there’s different opportunities for optimization depending on which method your website uses.

Google Is Shaking Up Its SEO Algorithm Again. So What?

Search Engine Optimization is a game with constantly changing rules, and if you want your site to rank prominently in search results, it’s imperative that you understand the latest rulebook.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Because, for all intents and purposes, there is no rulebook.

5 Scary Marketing Stats

This Halloween, more than $2 billion worth of candy will be given out across the United States.

What can be more frightening than the thought of millions of kids hopped up on $2 billion worth of sugar? These soberingly scary stats about marketing.

5 Steps To Manage Risk Before You Begin Exporting

Companies dealing with sluggish economies or saturated domestic markets often look to international expansion to manage risk. Consider this though: by expanding internationally, a company simultaneously mitigates and creates risk. There is inherent risk in expansion, particularly internationally; even mammoth retailers like Target have failed spectacularly.

Before expanding, a company must plan carefully, understand the market, staff carefully, and accept that the venture may still fail.

How To Pitch Inbound Marketing To A CFO

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably implemented pieces of inbound marketing, but have realized that pieces here and there aren’t enough anymore. You need to shift resources around (or get more of them) to make the changes needed to increase lead generation, reduce costs, and grow new markets. (But between you and your vision for more effective marketing is your C-suite — especially your CFO, and in many cases, your CEO...)

Steel Scandal Will Shake Up The Supply Chain

Some of the biggest names in manufacturing — Boeing, General Motors, Ford, Toyota, Honda, and many others — have seen their supply chains thrown into turmoil after a major Japanese steel supplier admitted fabricating quality control data.

5 Ways To Capture Marketing ROI

You probably have several different goals in mind for your marketing plan: increasing traffic, getting more leads, building your brand. But at the end of the day, what matters most to you? The answer has to be your Return on Investment (ROI). All of your marketing efforts should be based on clear, goal-oriented metrics, and how they relate to your bottom line.

With so many marketing tools at your disposal today — and a shift in buyer responsiveness from outbound to inbound marketing — it’s not always easy to lay out a plan to capture the ROI of a given campaign or program.

These five tips will help you focus your strategy on a metrics-driven marketing program – one that can deliver tangible, measureable results based on sales goals and objectives. Knowing how to measure and capture ROI helps you gauge your program’s success – and more importantly, gives you an organized, ready-to-present package for your CEO and executive team.