The landscape of marketing among manufacturing companies is changing. If your company is still relying solely on outbound marketing (traditional advertising) by using print ads, trade shows, telemarketing and other costly tactics to generate new business by pushing messages outward – you are sure to experience something our partners at HubSpot call the “Oh S**T” Moment.

This is the moment when you realize that it is not only people looking for a Black Friday deal, a new phone or an electronic item that use Google for their search. Did you know that over 90% of B2B buyers (including those researching new manufacturing equipment and services) start their research online? If your potential customers can’t find you, they may find your competitor. And there is that moment…

Few business professionals work for the same organization where they began as an intern. Chief Digital Officer for the Milwaukee Bucks, Mike Grahl, looks forward to entering his 20^th season with the team that helped him kick-off his professional career in the sales and marketing department. “I was very fortunate to have the opportunity to start my career with an organization that has allowed me to grow, take initiative and learn everyday – which I am continuing to do today.” Mike now oversees all digital marketing efforts for the organization which include team websites, mobile, social media, email & database marketing and much more.

This post was originally shared by Weidert Group on April 19, 2017.

Among the speakers at Experience Inbound 2017 is Jen Spencer, VP of Sales & Marketing for Phoenix-based Allbound. She joined the startup in 2015 and helped bring the company to its first $1 million in revenue in less than a year using her innovative inbound marketing program. She will share how she did it during her presentation at the event. 

People make buying decisions much differently today than they did 15…10… even 5 years ago. Gone are the days where a cold call is an acceptable form of capturing the attention of new prospects and customers. In fact, most people don’t even like answering a phone call from a friend, much less have a conversation with someone they have not met. This is just one example of the drastic change businesses have experienced in recent years with generating leads and mapping their buyer’s journey.

Creating a lead-generating ebook can be especially challenging for manufacturers given the complexity of their products and services. Understanding the unique challenges and interests of key personas for a particular product group is the first step to developing valuable content and determining a direction for a design that appeals to the reader. At the start of the ebook development process, it’s important to keep in mind that regardless of the ebook’s theme, its ability to teach, inspire and motivate are the ultimate elements for success.

Building buyer personas is one of the critical first steps to developing and implementing a lead generating marketing campaign for your business or client. Identifying your ideal customer and interviewing key individuals or groups of individuals who align with the characteristics of that ideal customer, is the spot-on way to gather information needed to create the most detailed persona outline. Individuals or groups may include current customers, prospective customers, and third party networks. Information collected that will provide valuable insight for your persona development may include both demographic and psychographic information, needs, interests, goals, challenges,pain points, social networks used, areas where the prospect interacts with others or does research online, and more.

As if inbound marketing wasn’t exceptional enough as is – it now has its own dedicated week where professionals from around the globe will unite. In partnership with HubSpot and Eventbrite, Inbound Marketing Week will take place June 2nd – 6th, 2014 with a series of events happening globally which will allow professionals to collaborate, share knowledge and ideas, best practices and trends. Whether you'll be hosting your own event or attending one in your area, here are 3 elements to help plan your Inbound Marketing Week:

Each year, our Stream Creative team heads to Boston for the annual Inbound conference hosted by HubSpot. The best part about attending the conference is the opportunity we have to meet and network with some of the most creative and talented individuals from around the world. This past November, we came away from the event inspired to bring a similar experience to the sales and marketing professionals of Southeastern Wisconsin. That was when Experience Inbound was born and to be honest, we weren’t sure if anyone would come. Thanks to our event speakers, sponsors and supporters, we were thrilled to have more than 150 attendees join us for the inaugural event. Here are a few of our favorite actionable takeaways our event speakers shared to help boost your inbound efforts in the year ahead.

1. “Traditional marketing is like renting space on someone else’s assets”

Brian Halligan, Co-Founder & CEO of HubSpot

Brian kicked off the morning with a dynamic talk about the future of inbound marketing and sales. He began his discussion by mentioning the brisk walk to the Harley-Davidson^® Museum from the Iron Horse Hotel – which in his compliments to the city of Milwaukee he mentioned was the “nicest place he has ever stayed.” He focused on many key inbound facts and areas of consideration including how to build your marketing assets.

Quick Tip: Marketing assets are thought of very differently today than they were 20 years ago, partly because of the way we now live and work. Instead of interrupting your way to get the attention of prospective buyers or clients through “renting space” on someone else’s assets (traditional advertising), how do you pull them in? That can be achieved through increasing webpages, links, keywords, followers, remarkable content, etc. Brian told us to think about building these assets as if you were building a moat around your business.

Watch a video of Brian Halligan’s Experience Inbound keynote presentation, view his slides and read his interview with Jeff Sherman of OnMilwaukee.com.

We discuss quality content with our customer partners on a daily basis and most know that it is an essential component to marketing success. As our ability to target messages with dynamic content expands, so does the need to create content that provides an educational, exciting and inspiring experience for web visitors and email recipients. The best way to ensure content is relevant to both current customers and prospects is not necessarily about changing your message, but customizing it with dynamic content. In order to do this effectively, you need to know something about the preferences of those you are targeting.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about dynamic content in the future but for now, here’s an introduction and what you need to know: