The Lovable Marketing Blog by Carrie Gallagher

September 25, 2013 By Carrie Gallagher

20 Reasons to Try Inbound Marketing for Your Small Business

These 20 stats are from HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing report (I cherry picked from a list of 150 the ones I thought most relevant to small business owners). Enjoy, and feel free to send me questions about anything related to Inbound. If I don’t know the answer, I will research and get back to you pronto! [Read more…] about 20 Reasons to Try Inbound Marketing for Your Small Business

September 20, 2013 By Carrie Gallagher

I Want to Take Tennis Lessons, But I Can’t Find Your Website!

I love playing tennis. Last year my husband gave me lessons for my birthday, so the first thing I did was Google the racquet club he bought them from, hoping to learn more about the instructors, how the classes were structured, and what I’d be learning.

Can you believe this business didn’t have a website? There were a few reviews on Yelp — a mix of positive and negative — but nothing else. All of my communication with the club had to be done by phone, because they also didn’t have an email address.

September 18, 2013 By Carrie Gallagher

Turn Your FAQ into a Blog & Drive More Traffic to Your Website

If you have a website that’s been around awhile, chances are you have an FAQ page. But even if you’re diligent about keeping your FAQ current with real questions your customers and prospects are asking, it’s not doing much in terms of traffic and Google search rankings. If you want to drive more traffic to your website, it’s time to turn that FAQ into a full-fledged blog.

September 16, 2013 By Carrie Gallagher

My Inbound ’13 Funk and the Problem with HubSpot “Delightion”

If you’ve had a business conversation with me since early 2012, you know how much I love HubSpot, but today I’ve got a bone to pick with them. See, this “Delightion” stuff that @dharmesh talked about during his Inbound ’13 keynote address — humanizing the selling process, and delighting customers so much they become promoters of your brand — it put me into a big, ugly funk. [Read more…] about My Inbound ’13 Funk and the Problem with HubSpot “Delightion”

September 10, 2013 By Carrie Gallagher

How Outbound Marketing Made Me Stop Answering My Phone

Today I returned to the office after a lot of time away this summer — working remotely, traveling for Inbound ’13, and filling the summer camp void with my son — and wasn’t at my desk more than 30 minutes before I received the first sales call, from an overly energetic inside sales guy reading a script about how his company can “fuel” my brand with content marketing. I told him I already use HubSpot, am quite happy with it, don’t have a marketing budget, and will just continue doing our content creation in-house. He suckered me into a meeting for next Monday.