It’s Marketing Transformation Week

I’m home sick from work today… which has absolutely nothing to do with it being Marketing Transformation Week. But since I’m sitting here in bed, drinking orange juice and trying to stave off cabin fever, I thought I’d write a quick blog post.

Cambridge, MA’s HubSpot, is promoting this week as Marketing Transformation Week. Since the Internet has transformed the way people purchase, connect, and learn, HubSpot has dedicated this week to showing marketers how the Internet can transform the way that they connect to, learn from, and engage their customers.

The process is simple; through various digital marketing methods, HubSpot provides companies the tools they need to amplify their digital presence, and get found organically through online searches. Once that happens, HubSpot helps these companies analyze the data they collect to improve their online sales processes.

First, HubSpot helps companies get found by creating and optimizing their online content. This can happen through blogs, social media, content management, SEO, or email. Second (and now that HubSpot has connected the company to their customers), it’s time to convert those leads to sales. Through landing pages, lead nurturing, CRM integration, and e-commerce integration, companies now have the tools to keep their customers coming back. Lastly, HubSpot provides their customers with data analysis tools to see where their web traffic is coming from, who is viewing their content, and who is sharing their content; this creates closed-loop marketing ROI.

The main focus this week is getting marketers to transition out of using expensive (both in time and dollars) traditional marketing methods like trade shows, cold-calling, and direct mail. HubSpot is encouraging marketers (whether they be agency-side or internal) to adopt innovative, traceable, digital marketing methods. It all makes sense- if you run a company, do you know exactly how many people are watching your TV ad, or reading your print ad in the Yellow Pages? Through digital marketing, you can know exactly how many people your content is reaching, precisely when it’s reaching them, and who they’re sharing it with.

Consider the following:

• 79% of adult Americans use the Internet
• 10.3 Billion searches are conducted every month on Google
• The average Internet user views 2,750 pages a month
• 1 of every 8 minutes spent online is spent on Facebook
• Twitter’s active users generate 90 million tweets per day
• 70% of the search engine links users click on are organic, not paid
• Tech trade show spending decreased by 46% in 2009
• Over 200 million Americans have registered for the Federal Trade Commission’s “Do Not Call” list
• 91% of users have unsubscribed from an email marketing/newsletter list they have previously subscribed to

The marketing landscape is changing rapidly. Marketers are shifting their advertising dollars to digital campaigns that organically reach people through multiple online channels. Shifting your marketing mix to allow for an inbound approach will let you connect with your customers on a personal level. Through these interactions, you can cultivate these customers to be advocates for your company/product/service, and ultimately create a word-of-mouth (or tweet-of-mouth) buzz for you. Isn’t it about time you transformed your marketing?

The above statistics were referenced from HubSpot’s slide deck, It’s Time to Transform Your Marketing.