Inbound Marketing Strategy to Enhance Your Business

First of all Inbound marketing is not a new concept for the business world. According to the surveys and the reports of Hubspot1, 74% of MNCs are following Inbound marketing strategy. And, 75% of their marketing people confirm that their strategies are quite effective in the market.

As the customer experience matures and time passes, new challenges and opportunities emerge for every marketing professional.

As stated in Hubspot’s inbound marketing report, here are the marketing challenges faced in 2019:

Marketing Challenges 2019
  • 61% of marketing professional faces leads and traffic generation issues.
  • 39% of marketers are unable to verify their Return Of Investment.
  • 27% are facing budget problems.

Well, it’s all about choosing the correct inbound marketing strategies for your business to overcome the above-mentioned challenges.

Let’s go further more, and explore the best inbound marketing strategies that you can implement for your business.

Create SEO Friendly Topic Clusters

If your business is involved with the online world then you might be aware that the higher your brand gains in Search Engines results, the better are the chances of gaining the prospect’s attention. One of the potential tactics that you must approach is the topic cluster inbound strategy.

Topic clusters are the set of interlinked blogs or pages which are already evolved with umbrella topics. With the help of a topic cluster, the visibility of content becomes clearer. Basically, topic clusters help Search Engines to cache content easily. As the content is more visible on the Search Engines, automatically your brand value will increase.

Create SEO Friendly Topic Clusters

For creating a topic cluster, a pillar page is a must. Pillar page extensively covers a specific topic comprehensively. It contains topics which address the crucial section of the content including a link that redirects the users to the subtopics containing deeper information.

Combination of blogs interlinked with subtopics listed on the pillar page is the topic cluster. Through topic cluster, you can show the semantic relationship of your content that will allow the Search Engines to crawl your brand name easily. The more your content is visible on Search Engines, the more you can generate traffic and leads.

Utilization Of CRM Tool

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is an approach to manage regular communication between a business and its potential customers. A CRM uses a data analysing process to retrieve the customer’s purchasing history to improve their productivity and user service experience. 

Utilization Of CRM Tool

For the implementation of this approach, there are many CRM tools that provide astounding benefits to businesses involved with the online world. 

A CRM tool will allow you to analyse the data of the customers that are engaging with your marketing activities and to keep a regular track on it. Not only this, a CRM tool can help in campaign management, sales automation, customer categorization, send emails, generate reports and much more.

Let’s take a look at the benefits a CRM tool can provide to your business.

Boost Sales Productivity

Industries using CRM system find out 29% of increment in sales, 34% in sales productivity and 42% in sales forecast accuracy. (Source: Salesforce)

A modern CRM system will help you in closing more leads that will automatically boost your sales productivity. According to the survey by Act!2, 48% of the 700 marketers consider that CRM made them achieve better sales function than before.

Improve Service Experience

A CRM tool allows you to collect your customer’s data from various sources like social media and categorize it in its database. With that database, you can analyse the buyer’s journey and can create an accurate buyer persona. 54% of marketers accept that CRM system allowed them to provide better customer services and also satisfied the customers.

Customer Retention

A recent poll conducted for CRM users shows that 47% of responders believe that using CRM has brought great impact on customer retention. (Source: Capterra)

These same CRM users who responded to the poll also believe that CRM system helped in increasing customer satisfaction. If your customer base is quite strong then a small increment of prospect retention and satisfaction will make you a huge profit.

Analytics and Reporting

A little miscalculation in any business can lead to a huge loss in every aspect. A CRM tool creates a complete statically visual report that will include every minor corner of your day to day business journey. A business report will allow you to enhance and keep a track on your business performance. 

Best CRM tools are:

Zoho Office Suite

Keap (Infusionsoft CRM)

Microsoft Dynamics CRM

Hubspot CRM

Act! CRM

Search out the best CRM tool that suits your business and keep a complete track on ROI.

Perform Organic Marketing Activities

Marketing activities like content marketing, search engine optimization, social media marketing and branding, all come under Inbound marketing. This inbound marketing strategy is a long-term strategy that will keep you and customers engaged for a longer period of time. 

PPC (Pay Per Click) is another internet marketing model to gain traffic quickly as it’s a paid advertising service and also a short-term strategy. Although, it’s not an organic marketing activity integrating organic marketing with PPC can enhance your visibility on Search Engines.

Perform Organic Marketing Activities

Organic marketing activity is a great Inbound marketing strategy because you do not require any investment. Try using different social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. With the help of these social marketing networks, you can save enough budget that can be used for your brand development.

  • Near about 67% of audiences use Facebook as their source of news.
  • 71% of consumers whose social media experience went well are more likely to recommend others for the same.
  • More than 80% of Instagram users are following at least one brand’s business page.

Customer engagement on Instagram compared with other social networks are:

  • 84% greater than Twitter
  • 10% higher than Facebook
  • 54% better than Pinterest

However, this does not mean that you only use Instagram as your social marketing platform. 

  • Twitter mentions that 80% of Inbound advertisers resolve service requests of their customers daily.

For more details, you can consider going through Hubspot’s blog page.

Conclusion

Your customers are already aware of their requirements as 60% of the world’s population is active on the internet interacting with blogs, forums, social platforms, etc. It’s your business which requires changes to make your customers happy. 

These inbound marketing strategies can vary according to your business. Try listing down your marketing problems and then consider implementing these effective strategies.

Also, make sure to choose a CRM tool that suits your business cycle. Therefore, for more in-depth knowledge, do not hesitate to connect us at https://www.qltech.com.au/contact/

FOOTNOTES

  1. The Inbound Strategy, 2019, Hubspot
  2. Act! Benefits of CRM

Top 20 Project Management Tools For Project Managers In Australia

The role of the project manager is crucial to the success of a project in every industry. Why wouldn’t it be? After all, a project manager is the person responsible for the intended initiation, planning, design, execution, monitoring, controlling and closure of a project.

But that’s not all, along with all these known-to-all project management responsibilities, a project manager also has many other important aspects to look into. For example: making people gel in so that they can work together without conflicts, track each individual’s work, ensure optimum motivation within the team at all times, keeping teams and clients on the same page, just to name a few.

Sounds quite difficult, right? Well, it is, which is why it is important that they have the right kind of tools and strategies in place to make their work easy and effective. Fortunately, there are a wide array of software applications out there to aid the specific requirements of project managers (and their team as well). However, considering the number of project management software and team management apps available out there, it is a task in itself to make the right choice.

Don’t worry! Below, we’ve compiled a list of project management tools that every project manager should consider using today to facilitate effective project and team management.

Let’s begin

Project Management Tools

Best Online Project Management Tools For Project Managers

ProofHub

ProofHub - Project Management Tool

ProofHub is a project management and collaboration platform that brings people in one place to discuss plans, create to-do lists, lay down Gantt chart, calendar milestones, track progress/time meet daily deadlines, and celebrate success. This tool comes with scalable features well-integrated, reasonably priced, and comes with scalable features that make it an ideal alternative to Basecamp, Asana, Trello and many other leading PM solutions.

Key features:

  • Chat and discussions
  • Task management
  • Workflows & Boards
  • Events & milestones
  • Gantt charts
  • Custom reports
  • Custom Roles
  • Files and notes
  • Recurrent tasks
  • Online proofing and approval
  • Announcements
  • Mentions
  • Time tracking
  • White labelling
  • Multiple languages
  • Advanced search
  • Mobile and tablet compatibility

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

ProofHub Essential – $50/month or $45/month (billed annually) (Discounts on subscriptions for non-profits)

ProofHub Ultimate Control – $99/month or $89/month (billed annually)

2) Zoho Project

Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects is a project management software designed to help you plan and collaborate on projects in a less complicated manner. The software also allows you to streamline your project workflows with automation, customization, as well as integration.

Key features:

  • Time logging
  • Project budgeting
  • Expense tracking
  • Resource utilization
  • Kanban board
  • Forums and discussions
  • Global/Project dashboards
  • Custom widgets, views, and fields
  • Custom permissions

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Standard – $25 per month ($20 per month if billed annually)

Express – $50 per month ($40 per month if billed annually)

Premium – $100 per month ($85 per month if billed annually)

Enterprise – $150 per month ($125 per month if billed annually)

3) Trello

Trello project management tool

Trello is a project management and collaboration system that utilizes the concept of boards (which represent projects) and cards (which represent tasks). It simplifies project management and collaboration by organizing all your project-critical details in one place.

Key features:

  • Instant overview on front and back of cards
  • Drag and drop functionality
  • In-line editing
  • Easy uploading of files and attachments
  • Data filtering
  • Archiving of card records
  • Deadline reminders
  • Email notifications
  • Activity log
  • Assign tasks
  • Information retrieval and back-up

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Business Class – $9.99 per user/month (billed annually)

Enterprise – $20.83 or less per user/month (billed annually)

4) Wrike

Wrike - Project Management Tool

Wrike is one place for all of your work. It’s a project management solution that comes packed with team collaboration and business management features to eliminate your everyday hassles at work.

Key features:

  • Task management
  • Gantt chart
  • Document collaboration
  • Discussions in tasks
  • Task prioritization
  • Customized reports
  • Recurrent tasks
  • Workload management
  • Time-tracking
  • Google Docs, Dropbox, Box integrations
  • Email integration

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Professional Plan – $9.80/user/month(billed annually)

Business Plan – $24.80/user/month (billed annually)

Wrike for Marketers – $34.60/user/month (billed annually)

Enterprise Pricing – by quote

5) Smartsheet

Smartsheet- project management tool

Smartsheet is an extremely powerful project management tool that provides you with targeted solutions for your business.

Key features:

  • Dashboards
  • Calendar view
  • Card view
  • Gantt chart
  • Alerts and automated actions
  • Activity log
  • Filters
  • Resource management
  • Reports
  • Custom branding

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Individual Plan – $14/user/month (billed annually)

Business Plan – $25/user/month (billed annually)

Enterprise Plan – customized (contact vendor)

6) Clarizen

Clarizen - project management tool

Clarizen is an enterprise-grade solution that addresses every challenge a team might face while collaborating or managing work. It empowers teams to achieve better efficiency across the entire project management lifecycle by streamlining work and automating processes.

Key features:

  • Gantt chart
  • Task management
  • Issue tracking
  • Project portfolio management
  • Personal calendars
  • Time tracking
  • Budget tracking
  • Resource management
  • Role and assignment per project
  • Document sharing
  • Risk management
  • Workforce management
  • Executive Dashboards
  • Knowledge management

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Enterprise Edition – By quote

Unlimited Edition – By quote

7) Workzone

Workzone -project management tool

Teams can use Workzone to keep projects organized by tasks/subtasks, gain clarity over responsibilities, and connect together to quickly identify when a task is due or needs immediate attention.

Key features:

  • Email alerts
  • Gantt chart
  • Group calendar
  • Individual to-do lists
  • Project templates
  • Projects overview dashboard
  • Time tracking
  • Automated reports
  • Custom branding

Pricing:

Free trial – Not available

Team – By quote

Professional – By quote

Enterprise – By quote

8) Backlog

Backlog- project management tool

Backlog is a project management tool exclusively designed for marketing and software development teams. The aim of this solution is to boost collaboration, coordination, and communication between team members so that they can be more productive with their project/tasks.

Key features:

  • Project management
  • Project progress tracking
  • Task management
  • Gantt charts
  • Burndown charts
  • Team collaboration
  • File sharing
  • Bug tracking
  • Milestones
  • Custom fields
  • Notifications
  • Private repositories

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Free Plan –$0/month

Starter Plan – $35/month or $350/year

Standard Plan – $100/month or $1,000/year

Premium Plan – $175/month or $1,750/year

Enterprise Plan –$1,200 to $8,500/year

9) Jira

Jira -project management tool

Jira is a project management software with a simple, intuitive interface that enables effective collaboration within teams and allows them to manage every aspect of project management in one place.

Key features:

  • Customizable workflows
  • Unlimited custom fields
  • Seamless source/issue integration
  • Advanced search and filtering
  • Advanced reporting
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Advanced security
  • Mobile interface

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Cloud Up to 10 users – $10 monthly flat fee

Cloud 11 – 100 users – $7 per user/month

Self-hosted Server – $10 one-time payment for 10 users

Self-hosted Data Center – $12,000 per year for 500 users

10) Hive

Hive- project management tool

Hive is a cloud-hosted project management platform that caters to the specific needs of your team. It offers a multitude of features that let you create, assign, track, and complete tasks in one place.

Key features:

  • Multiple views
  • Chat
  • File sharing
  • Analytics
  • Time tracking
  • Powered to do lists
  • Status view
  • Project tracking
  • Gantt chart
  • Automatic updates
  • Files & folders
  • Integrations

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Professional – $12/user/month

Enterprise – Contact vendor

11) ProWorkflow

ProWorkflow - Project Management Tool

ProfWorkflow is a project management system that helps you collaborate seamlessly and have better project visibility. The software works for freelancers and all small, medium, and large enterprises.

Key features:

  • Templates for reports and forms
  • Dashboards and status summaries
  • Easy-to-use scheduling
  • Messaging tool
  • Branding & configuration
  • Permission-based access
  • File sharing
  • Time tracker
  • Notifications & alerts
  • Gantt style timeline
  • Free basic training and support

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Solo – $10 per month, ideal for freelancers

Professional – $20 per month per user

Advanced – $30 per month per user, perfect for enterprise

12) Flock

Flock -Project Management Tool

Flock is a robust collaboration and management application that simplifies the process of working together. It manifests a central hub for modern teams to work together to achieve the desired goals.

Key features:

  • Productivity tools
  • Multiple Integrations
  • Communication management
  • Search functionality
  • Video and audio calls

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Pro Plan – $6/user/ month or $4.5/user/month billed annually

Enterprise – quote based

13) Podio

Podio

Podio is a work management platform that keeps everything closely tracked and organized. This is an ideal tool for team collaboration, task management, information sharing, project scheduling, and automated workflows.

Key features:

  • Project Management
  • Automated Workflows
  • Data Visualization
  • Social Collaboration
  • Task Management
  • Calendar
  • Unlimited Storage
  • Personal Dashboards
  • Connected CRM
  • Integrated Chat
  • Full Customization

Pricing:

Free trial – Available

Basic: $9 or $ 7.20 (annual)

Podio Plus: $14 or $11.20 (annual)

Premium: $24 or $19.20 (annual)

Enterprise: Custom plans

14) ClickUp

ClickUp - Project Management Tool

ClickUp is a hybrid project management platform with all the features you need to streamline your processes and work efficiently. The platform works seamlessly for many industries, including sales, marketing, design, and development.

Key features:

  • Project management
  • Task management
  • Multiple assignees
  • Threaded Comments
  • Custom Statuses
  • Agile Board View
  • Progress Percentage
  • Custom Notifications
  • Mentions
  • Drag and drop reordering
  • Smart Search
  • Gantt Chart
  • Calendar

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Business – $9/user/month or $5/user/month (annual billing)

15) Airtable

Airtable - Project Management Tool

Airtable is a management solution equipped with exceptional organization and collaboration functionalities. It works like a typical spreadsheet and allows you to organize all your project related information into a centralized system.

Key features:

  • Customized views
  • Email integration
  • Third party integration
  • Calendar management
  • Collaborative workspace
  • Communication management
  • Records management
  • Data synchronization
  • Automatic backup
  • Templates

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Airtable Free – Free

Plus – $12/user/mo

Pro – $24/user/mo.

Enterprise Plan – Contact vendor

16) Paymo

Paymo

Paymo is a project management tool that helps your team achieve their goals through measured steps. It keeps everyone on the same page and helps them stay organized, productive throughout the project management process.

Key features:

  • Project management
  • Task management
  • Team management
  • Resource management
  • Financial management
  • Time tracking
  • Timesheet reporting
  • Mobile apps
  • Adaptable dashboard
  • Personalization

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Small Office Plan – $11.95/user/mo (billed monthly) or $9.56/user/mo (billed annually)

Business Plan – $18.95/user/mo (billed monthly) or $15.16/user/mo (billed annually)

17) Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project

Microsoft Project is a work management solution we all have used or heard at some point. It enables individuals, teams, and enterprises to get started, manage a project, and deliver it successfully with the intended value.

Key features:

  • Planning and scheduling
  • Project timeline view
  • Real-time communication
  • Reporting
  • Different views
  • Resource management
  • Project portfolio management
  • Anywhere, anytime access

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Essentials – $7 per user/month

Professional – $30 per user/month

Premium – $55 per user/month

Standard – $589.99

Professional – $1159.99

Server – By quote

Project Pro For Office 365 – $25.00 user/month

Online – $33.00 user/month

18) LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner

LiquidPlanner is a collaboration and project management software for the new generation. It offers specific features to match the project needs of all small and large teams.

Key features:

  • Priority-based scheduling
  • Built-in collaboration
  • Time tracking
  • Project analytics & reporting
  • Document management
  • Access controls
  • Baseline view
  • Checklists
  • Cross-reference tasks

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Small Team – $9.99/user/month billed annually

Professional – $45/user/month billed annually

Enterprise – $69/user/month billed annually

19) Aha!

aha- project

Aha! is a comprehensive road mapping and project management software. It implements a framework that allows teams and project managers to connect and facilitate easier, faster achievement of business goals.

Key features:

  • Business model generator
  • 360 tracker
  • Idea management
  • Visual reports and detailed charts
  • Notebook
  • Product notes
  • Third-party integrations

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Premium – $59/user/month (billed yearly) or $74/user/month (billed monthly)

Enterprise – $99/user/month (billed yearly) or $124/user/month (billed monthly)

Aha! Enterprise + – $149/user/month (annual only)

20) ProjectManager.com

ProjectManager

The last tool in our list is ProjectManager. It’s an end-to-end project management solution that takes project management and collaboration to a whole new level.

Key features:

  • Real-time dashboards
  • Gantt charts
  • Task management
  • Timesheets
  • Resource management
  • Chats & discussions
  • Online file storage
  • Project templates
  • Advanced reports

Pricing:

Free Trial – Available

Personal – $15 per user/month

Team – $20/user/month

Business – $25/user/month

Enterprise – by quote

If you have a tool in mind that would make a perfect addition to our list of top project management tools for project managers, let us know in the comments below!

4 Digital Marketing Services to Become a Successful Entrepreneur

At present, digital marketing services algorithms are difficult to understand. When algorithms become familiar, implementation seems like a breeze. But actually, the marketing algorithms are awesome. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is not bounded by just a few techniques. Digital marketing services include SEO that makes every online business stronger.

There are SEO practices in digital marketing that come handy for business websites. These services help to increase their readability, accessibility and revenue-generating paths. At the same time, these services can even drift your business into trouble. If you don’t apply the right one at the right time.

Now, let’s say you know all the digital marketing tactics. Also, you apply them to make your online business successful. But still, does it makes you a good entrepreneur? In SEO, there are many strategies but you can’t implement them all at the same time. To make your online business perform well on a bigger platform, you will have to follow only a few SEO marketing tactics. That will make your work impressive and will make you a better entrepreneur.

Let’s begin with those four digital marketing services that will allow you to become a better business person.

1) Mind-Boggling Content

While surfing on the internet, you will find similar information on different blog pages. The content can be in many storylines but the climax is the same. At present, the audience does not consider going through the same information again. They are always in a need of fresh and informative data.

So, consider gaining more knowledge before publishing your content live. All you have to do is spend more and more time on the internet searching for useful content for your audience. Being a digital marketing person, you should know the taste of your audience. The content on your website should be unique and simple enough to understand.

Mind-Boggling-Content

2) Google Search Isn’t Enough

Is your online business site ranking first on Google? It can be yes but not 24/7. Even if your online business website has all the products that customers want. Still, it will not be retaining its position. The reason will be your competitors using the latest SEO practices.

Google search is not enough to maintain your brand name as a vast part of the audience are mobile users. It’s a modern era and mobile applications are trending like hotcakes. No one considers opening up a browser to search for any item. People consider using apps to find better results. 

At present, there are many services apps available in the market that provide amazing customer services. For example food ordering apps, taxi booking apps, medicine delivery apps and many more. People can get whatever they want with the help of these service apps. Now, this is why Google Search isn’t enough for every user.

Also, we should not forget that except Google, there are other search engines like Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com. You will have to focus on such SEO practices that will allow your website to rank of various search engines.

digital marketing services

3) Add Technical SEO

This year many new technologies came up to make our lives better. In the same manner, SEO has also brought many new innovations. Out of these innovations, Speed, Progressive Web Apps, and JavaScript are still the most focused parts of SEO. You may be countering many issues with these three terms while optimizing your website.

Website loading speed should be quick. But, due to heavy JavaScript, the website speed decreases. Consider avoiding bulky JavaScripts to run your online business website smoothly. 

Progressive Web Apps are the future of digital marketing. Basically, Progressive Web App is one of the subcategories of mobile apps that are developed using ordinary computer languages like CSS, JavaScript, and HTML. It’s an amazing alternate of service websites that can drive huge traffic on your website. But still, many digital marketers are still not aware of its benefits. 

SEO services have no bars, it includes practices that are responsible for optimising website visibility on search engines. SEO services are composed of practices like On-Page and Off-Page activities.

1) On-Page Activity:

On-page activity refers to all those SEO practices that are directly implemented on a web page to improve its ranking. Here are some key On-page activities:

  • Maintaining content structure
  • Content quality
  • Optimising HTML codes
  • Internal Linking

2) Off-Page Activity:

Off-page activity refers to those SEO practices that are implemented outside the website page to increase its ranking. Some of the key Off-page activities are:

  • Backlinking
  • Link Relevancy
  • Document sharing
  • Directory submission

But make sure both the page activities are implemented parallelly or else your efforts will go in vain. This is an advantage for you to make your business website reachable to your audience. Not only reachable but you can build brand trust, increase traffic and can improve ROI for your brand.

4_Add Technical SEO

4) Voice Search Optimisation

According to recent studies, 90% of the world’s population are mobile users. In that 90 %, three-fourths of the people are surfing the internet throughout the day. Do you think people are searching for their information through typing? Of course not, almost 80% of the people are using voice search option to get the desired information.

Voice search is an important feature for every person’s day to day life. People are quite busy in their professional lives and do not get time to even get their fingers on their phones. Here’s why the voice search feature is beneficial as it allows people to get search results in a better form. So, it’s better to add a voice search option in your online business website.

5_Voice Search Optimization

Well, these are the four SEO marketing strategies. These can make your digital marketing services better. It’s uncertain that only these methods will improve your digital marketing skills. But, these can make you a better entrepreneur.