How to Use Twitter to Generate Leads & Sales

How to Use Twitter to Generate Leads &

SalesAMA NY Capital Region Luncheon

January 14, 2009

Rick Burnes

HubSpot Marketing Manager

Twitter: @rickburnes

Agenda

I. About HubSpot & Inbound Marketing

II. What is Twitter and Why Should I Use It?Use It?

III. Building a Twitter Network

IV.Sharing Content & Driving Traffic

V. Twitter Measurement & ROI

2

What’s HubSpot?

• Founded in July 2006; grew out of research at MIT

• Sells inbound marketing software

• 2,000+ customers; 100+ employees

3

Traditional Marketing (Outbound)

4

Marketing Today (Inbound)

5

How Do the Best New Companies Market?

1950 - 2000 2000 - 2050

6

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Get Found

• Publish

• Promote

• Optimize

Process Tools

Get Found

• Content Mgmt

• Blogging

• Social Media

• SEO

Website Visitors

7

Leads• SEO

• Analytics

Convert

• Test

• Target

• Nurture

Customers

Convert

• Offers / CTAs

• Landing Pages

• Email

• Lead Intelligence

• Lead Mgmt

• Analytics

One Way to Feed the Funnel

Blogging SEO Email Pay-Per-ClickTwitter

Website Visitors

8

Leads

Customers

Twitter

Not Sold on Twitter?

Same recipe for success on every social network.

9

Agenda

I. About HubSpot & Inbound Marketing

II. What is Twitter and Why Should I Use It?Use It?

III. Building a Twitter Network

IV.Sharing Content & Driving Traffic

V. Twitter Measurement & ROI

10

What IS Twitter?W

hat I S

ee

What P

eople

Publis

h

It’s Public

One person tweets … … anybody can see it.

12

It’s a Network

13

Flickr: Hljod.Huskona

It’s Real Time

14

Flickr: Thomas Hawk

What Are the Uses?

Marketing

15

Customer Service

Listening

Is Twitter Like Cotton Candy?

16

• Colorful

• Sticky

• No nutritional or business value

Flickr: anitacanita

No! It’s Like Whole Wheat Bread.

17

• Healthy

• Used widely

• A basic part of any diet or marketing mix

Flickr: sierravalleygirl

A Twitter PR Anecdote

I will call you right now

Need to urgently speak with a business that is very actively leveraging social media strategies; for ZDNet

408 555-1234?

I spoke about our use of social media for biz on 2 panels -http://tinyurl.com/4v4cgh AND http://tinyurl.com/6943l9

Elapsed Time:

50 Minutes

Twitter Drives Leads

HubSpot Social Media Leads

19

Twitter is largest category, at >40% of HubSpot’s total social media leads.

Twitter Still at ~4% Growth

20

eMarketer estimates 18 Million total users.

How to Succeed With Twitter

Build a

Network

Measure & Analyze

Share Content

Agenda

I. About HubSpot & Inbound Marketing

II. What is Twitter and Why Should I Use It?Use It?

III. Building a Twitter Network

IV.Sharing Content & Driving Traffic

V. Twitter Measurement & ROI

22

Start by Building a Network

23

How do you build an engaged network?

You Already Have the Skills

You Just Do It Offline

• Meeting people

• Building relationships

• Asking questions

• Answering questions

24

• Answering questions

• Building trust

• Building a reputation

Company Profile? Personal Profile?

Let Your Brand Shine

Put a Bio in Your Profile

Avg F

ollo

wers

Avg F

ollo

wers

Put a Link in Your Profile

Avg F

ollo

wers

Avg F

ollo

wers

Follow People

Updates from the people you follow appear on your homepage.

Follow People Who Follow You

How to Find People to Follow

twitter.grader.com/search

See Who Thought-Leaders Follow

twitter.com/dmscott

Create a Company Page

twitter.zappos.com/employees

Follow Your Brand in Conversations

Engage With Your Network

35

Engagement Dominates

36

What Are Twitter Applications?

37

One telephone number,

many ways to call.

One Twitter handle,

many ways to tweet.

Agenda

I. About HubSpot & Inbound Marketing

II. What is Twitter and Why Should I Use It?Use It?

III. Building a Twitter Network

IV.Sharing Content & Driving Traffic

V. Twitter Measurement & ROI

38

Share Content With Your Network

Content Rule #1: It must be useful/interesting/fun

Blogging Increases Twitter Reach >75%

40

What to Publish?

• Blog

• Podcast

• Videos

• Photos• Photos

• Presentations

• eBooks

• News Releases

41

A Word of Caution

• Don’t Tweet too much

about your product.

NOBODY CARES.

• Create content that’s • Create content that’s

useful and interesting to

your target personas.

Conversation & Distribution

Conversation

43

Conversation

Distribution

AND

Good Content Spreads

44

If you provide interesting content,

your network will retweet it.

What Gets Shared?

Rarely

Shared

Frequently

Shared

45

• Product info

• Free trials

• Software documentation

• New data

• Funny videos

• Top-notch blog posts

Use Favorites to Save Highlights

twitter.com/HubSpot/favourites

Agenda

I. About HubSpot & Inbound Marketing

II. What is Twitter and Why Should I Use It?Use It?

III. Building a Twitter Network

IV.Sharing Content & Driving Traffic

V. Twitter Measurement & ROI

47

Follower Count

• A measure of your raw distribution power

@replies

• A measure of community engagement & branding

• On your profile or via search.twitter.com

Twitter Grader

• Inputs include followers, influence, follower influence

and patterns of use

Measure the Impact on Your Funnel

Website Visitors

51

Customers

How to Track Your Funnel

Track visitors. Track leads. Track customers.

52

Track Conversions

Traffic to HubSpot.com

Visitors Leads Conversion Customers Net Conversion

Twitter 3,289 554 17% 12 0.4%

Facebook 504 75 15% 6 1.2%

Stumbleupon 511 28 5% 1 0.2%

Selected Channels

53

Final Thoughts …

54

Build Leverage

55

Too Many Pieces to Put Together!

56

d.j.k. on flickr

HubSpot Puts the Pieces Together

57

Thank You!

Sign up for a free trial of HubSpot:

www.hubspot.com/trial/

Connect with me:

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/rickburnes

Twitter: www.twitter.com/rickburnes