6 Cool & Creative Ideas to Inspire Your Inbound Marketing

Any business that decides to outsource their marketing wants to be wowed right out of the gate. And it’s the job of any good marketing agency to quickly identify what, exactly, that wow factor should be.

Now, as marketers, we tend to draw from our trusty Rolodexes of quick wins and go-to best practices. But the real magic happens when we push beyond the one-size-fits-all solutions and apply some creative thinking to a previously-missed opportunity. So, to help inspire a little creative thinking for your next marketing initiative, we thought we’d round up and share some ways our PMG experts have done just that. We hope you find these ideas as valuable as our clients did!

1. Tie Social Media Engagement to Giveaways at Live Events

Generate more qualified leads at your trade show booth.

Our client attended an event at which some team members gave presentations; others tended the booth, where they planned to give Starbucks gift cards to those who stopped by. But we wanted to help them turn this into a stronger lead gen opportunity, so we recommended they do the following:

• Ask event goers attending the presentations to live-tweet, post on LinkedIn or Facebook, and tag our client – then stop by the booth to show the tweet and receive the $5 gift card.

• Pre-promote this idea to customers attending the conference via email.

• Have presenters add a slide at the beginning of their presentation encouraging and explaining the participation in the social giveaway.

• Promote this idea on conference collateral.

The result? Numbers showed a large increase in quality leads stopping by the booth! Instead of giving gift cards away freely (like they had always done), our client increased social engagement and received lead information in exchange.

2. Create Video Introductions for High-Performing Blog Posts

It's fast, free content repurposing!

We've had several clients who were really lacking in their video content, but did not have the time or budget to create something from scratch. Our team identified their top-performing blog articles and then decided to make video introductions for them.

This was super easy to do with Lumen5! You simply load the blog copy into the tool and it automatically populates the video. The tool lets you upload your own images, or will even suggest relevant images or video clips to use.

The best part? Lumen5 offers a free version (which is branded with Lumen5 at the end) for anyone who wants to give it a try. Of course, there is a non-branded paid version, as well. The blog intros were a quick and easy home run for clients who needed to fill the void of video content on their websites!

3. Leverage YouTube’s Auto-generated Video Transcripts

Upgrade existing video content while boosting SEO potential.

During the onboarding phase with one of our clients, we realized they had several short explainer video clips which were not actively being used. On their own, the videos were a bit lacking; they didn’t quite tell the full brand story and were therefore not strong enough to use on the website.

To breathe life into these clips, we decided to bridge the gaps in the video content with a modified transcript. We started by uploading the videos to YouTube. Behind the scenes of any YouTube video, an editable transcription of the content is automatically generated. Using this transcript, we decided to create a "vlog" version of the video.

We embedded the video on a blog post page, and then wrote out supplemental content to introduce and summarize the transcript. This modified transcript helped “tie the bow” on the existing video, making it a valuable marketing tool. Transcribing the content also improved the video’s SEO potential and find-ability! We promoted the vlog on the client’s email newsletter and sure enough, it was the top-performing piece of content!

4. Create an Interactive Calculator for Your Website

From spreadsheet formula to lead gen opportunity!

We’ve learned that a great number of businesses perform the same calculations for their prospects and customers over and over again. Often, this is done through some type of calculator or series of formulas within an Excel spreadsheet that's kept in-house. These types of internally used tools provide very useful data to those who are in the decision-making process of the buyer's journey. But consider this: is there any reason you can't publicly offer a calculator on your site to cut out unnecessary steps and quickly showcase added value?

For one manufacturing client, we decided to turn this important data into an interactive, customer-facing experience. We created a custom calculator for their website – and the tool was free for visitors to use. However, the results were emailed to users with a friendly explanation, thereby turning it into a valuable offering that not only converted anonymous visitors into known contacts, but helped us identify and nurture good-fit prospects.

5. Supplement Ungated Content with a Lead Flow

This works for pillar content, interactive guides, and more.

To intensify the SEO impact of our regular blogging strategy (both for clients and our own marketing efforts), we've created a number of comprehensive ungated guides – known as "pillar content". While pillar content pieces are a great way to demonstrate authority on a given topic, bolster optimization efforts, and engage leads over time, they are not gated behind forms like more traditional content offers. And sometimes, our clients expect a lead gen piece that feels more direct and provides immediate gratification with respect to conversions.

As a quick and easy solution, we've incorporated pop-up forms (know as HubSpot Lead Flows) that appear for engaged readers as they scroll down the page. Through the Lead Flows, our clients are able to offer a printable PDF-version of the content in exchange for contact information. The follow-up email then becomes a great lead-nurturing opportunity! Along with the printable guide, readers can receive additional relevant content with which they could further engage.

6. Amplify Timely, Relevant Content with Email Signatures

Your team’s email communications can serve as prime CTA real estate.

When you think about the exposure your emails have, particularly when talking to already-engaged prospects, leveraging email signatures is a no-brainer. There are a few quick ways to optimize your email signature; the two that our clients have had the most success with are as follows:

• Incorporating a direct link to a calendar-scheduling app (such as Calendly).

• Adding a visually enticing Call-to-Action (CTA) to entice readers to download a new content offer or register for an upcoming webinar.

This seemingly small change can have a noticeable impact – and may serve as an effective way to heat up those lukewarm leads and amplify your best content!

We hope you found these marketing tidbits useful! Keep in mind, the best ideas are always the ones that are tailored specifically for your unique business, and capitalize on opportunities that may be lurking just below the surface.

Have ideas of your own that you'd like to share? Comment below! And if you'd like to see how we can wow your business right out of the gate, please feel free to reach out to our team at any time.