When BP was confronted with the daunting challenge of managing the PR crisis after the oil-spill they didn’t just buy expensive TV spots and full page newspaper ads. Like any company with marketing-savvy,  they put in place an aggressive, integrated SEO and social media marketing plan in order to saturate the search engines with “their” side of the story. They bought negative keywords for paid-search, quickly created micro-sites and devoted Facebook & Twitter pages for their message, all this to negotiate the narrative. They topped it all with a series of electronic press releases. The objective was to dominate Google in order to combat the negative buzz! (more…)

Why is it so important to be # 1 (beside the fact that no one remembers #2)? According to information leaked on AOL (AOL results are fed by Google):

#1 position on Google search results page is worth 8.5 times more than #5 position. This, in terms of clicks, time spent on page leading to proportionate increase in leads,  conversions and so on. (more…)

A recent study by HubSpot concludes that the cost per lead for inbound marketing is dramatically lower than the cost of lead acquisition through outbound channels! That’s great news for businesses suffering due to the economic downturn. What’s more, the effectiveness of the leads does not end there. The organic leads that you acquire through social media, blogging and other inbound channels are also of better quality in terms of loyalty, referrals and bringing repeat business.
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