Tuesday Reads: Inbound Marketing, Housing Bubble

Marketing Research Chart: What are the most valuable inbound lead sources? - Kaci Bower, MarketingSherpa

The fine folks at MarketingSherpa released a new report on inbound marketing and surprise, surprise inbound marketing if effective.

Leads obtained from inbound marketing tactics, such as SEO, social media and blogs, have increased in importance over the last 12 months, particularly when compared to leads from outbound marketing programs. Inbound marketing tactics tend to be cost-effective, and offer an efficient option for generating highly qualified leads.

Twelve Facts That May Surprise You About the Housing Bust - Nick Timiraos, WSJ

A new paper was released by the Federal Reserve that analyzed the housing bubble/crash. Their viewpoint is that the commonly accepted reasons for the bubble aren't really true. Agree?

Fact 1: Resets of adjustable-rate mortgages did not cause the foreclosure crisis.
Fact 2: No mortgage was “designed to fail.”
Fact 3: There was little innovation in mortgage markets in the 2000s.
Fact 4: Government policy toward the mortgage market did not change much from 1990 to 2005.
Fact 5: The originate-to-distribute model was not new.
Fact 6: MBS, CDOs, and other “complex financial products” had been widely used for decades.
Fact 7: Mortgage investors had lots of information.
Fact 8: Investors understood the risks.
Fact 9: Investors were optimistic about house prices.
Fact 10: Mortgage market insiders were the biggest losers.
Fact 11: Mortgage market outsiders were the biggest winners.
Fact 12: Top-rated bonds backed by mortgages did not turn out to be “toxic.” Top-rated bonds in collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) did.

Links for May 1: LinkedIn B2B Leads, The Next Big Thing, China

LinkedIn 4x Better for B2B Leads than Facebook or Twitter - David Meerman Scott, socialmediatoday.com

In a study of 3,128 HubSpot B2B customers, LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.60%, four times higher than Twitter (.67%) and seven times better than Facebook (.39%). 

 
Seven Ways to Spot the Next Big Thing - Thomas Goetz, CNBC.com
1. Look for cross-pollinators
2. Surf the exponentials
3. Favor the liberators
4. Give points for audacity
5. Bank on openness
6. Demand deep design
7. Spend time with time wasters

Read the whole, original article here: How to Spot the Future 

Four Shocks That Could Change China - Paul Gregory, Forbes
1. More local revolts like the Wukan Uprising
2. A faltering economy is leading to some to call for the government to step back and allow more free enterprise and financial freedom
3. The whole Bo Xilai fiasco
4. The escape of blind dissident Chen Guangcheng from house arrest and his ability to travel across China to the US Embasssy in Beijing. (Again, he is blind.)

Reading List for This Week

Here a couple of articles I read this morning...and thought you might like them too.


The PRoblem with Startups - The Flack Blog. This is a nice round up of the Mark Cuban - PR industry rumpus. If you didn't know, shy Mark poked a stick at PR people by saying that startups didn't need trained professionals to generate editorial coverage and that all a CEO had to do was send a quick email to the editors of trade magazines to generate any coverage needed. This might work if you are Mark Cuban (and even then.) PR practitioners, obviously, are a little peeved at Mark pooping on their profession and have generated a fair number of blog posts defending the value they bring. All of this ignores the whole decline of trade media and rise of content marketing trend that I've been talking about for years, but there you go.

Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack - Smithsonian Magazine. Think cyberwarefare is a big problem. You have no idea...

The story Richard Clarke spins has all the suspense of a postmodern geopolitical thriller. The tale involves a ghostly cyberworm created to attack the nuclear centrifuges of a rogue nation—which then escapes from the target country, replicating itself in thousands of computers throughout the world. It may be lurking in yours right now. Harmlessly inactive...or awaiting further orders. 

A great story, right? In fact, the world-changing “weaponized malware” computer worm called Stuxnet is very real. It seems to have been launched in mid-2009, done terrific damage to Iran’s nuclear program in 2010 and then spread to computers all over the world. Stuxnet may have averted a nuclear conflagration by diminishing Israel’s perception of a need for an imminent attack on Iran. And yet it might end up starting one someday soon, if its replications are manipulated maliciously. And at the heart of the story is a mystery: Who made and launched Stuxnet in the first place? 

Richard Clarke tells me he knows the answer.

The Myth of Mobile Content Marketing - Copyblogger. I love Copyblogger. Almost every post I read there has gobs of valuable information and is a pleasure to read. Here is a story on the power of browser based mobile websites and the advantage they have over mobile apps.

The world has changed. We’re carrying powerful computers around in our front pockets. We consume the content on our mobile screens while grabbing a coffee, walking the dog, and waiting in line at the DMV.  

And yet, I started this post with a somewhat bold declaration: There is no such thing as “Mobile Content Marketing”. With the introduction of accessible responsive design, mobile content marketing has become simply … content marketing.  

To be a player — a publisher — in the mobile space, you now need only one website, distributing your content on the open web, and displayed perfectly on the little computers so many of us carry.

Monday's Links- This Week, On Wednesday!

I tend to think that the social media tool ecosystem is pretty much set. You know, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, whatever. There may be a Google +, or Quora, or Pinterest bouncing around, but to me, they have to prove themselves worthy before I can really devote any of my limited (although large) amount of social media time.

That having been said, one must always keep an eye on what tools or apps are bubbling up from the thousands of Mark Zuckerberg wannabees toiling away endlessly. Which is why I found this article on Entrepreneur.com so valuable...


10 Little Known Social Media Tools You Should Be Using -- Now by Neil Patel
You should read the whole thing but here is the abbreviated list

1. EditFlow
2. TweetReach
3. ArgyleSocial
4. Hootsuite for IPad
5. TweetLevel
6. ReFollow
7. TwitterSearch
8. Traackr
9. SocMetrics
10. Social Scope

Why Videos Go Viral- CBS News
Apparently, YouTube's Kevin Allocca knows how to make videos go viral. He should know, as his TED talk on the subject is getting picked up everywhere, including on this hunble blog. Good job, Kevin!

The secret sauce? Taste Makers, Communities and Participation, and Unexpectedness.


Content Marketing Delivers Traditional PR Value Too - Chris Parente
I'll just go ahead and quote my good friend Chris-

All that said, a well crafted and executed content marketing program can also deliver more traditional PR benefits like awareness and earned media placements. This was clearly illustrated recently for one of my B2G clients. The company sells commercial satellite communications to the government, a market that is going through significant changes due to the federal budget climate and corresponding cuts in Pentagon spending.
My client’s senior management are focusing on this market evolution with thought leadership content that is both candid and creative. In the past two weeks, this content has resulted in tangible market benefits such as:

• A blog post being mentioned verbatim in a government agency presentation on the state of the market; 

• An offer to repurpose a blog post as a a full page byline, again verbatim, in a leading industry trade magazine; 

• An offer to expand a blog post into a 2,000 word article from a leading academic journal. 

All these benefits from a program designed to directly support revenue growth. The choice isn’t always black and white. A well executed content marketing program can deliver many traditional PR benefits along the way to measurable ROI.

Monday Reading List

Facebook Launches New Mobile Web Standards Initiative, Easier Payments for the Mobile Web - Silicon Filter

During a special lunch-time event at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona today, Facebook's CTO Bret Taylor introduced a number of new industry-wide initiatives for the mobile web. Facebook is also working with a number of other vendors to define better web standards that can be implemented across devices to ensure that users can get a consistent mobile web app experience across devices. The Core Mobile Web Platform, as this new group is called, will work to ensure that there are very specific mobile web standards that developers can expect to be available across devices and mobile browers.

Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing & Daily Creative Routine  - BrianPickings.org

COMMANDMENTS

• Work on one thing at a time until finished. 
• Start no more new books, add no more new material to ‘Black Spring.’ 
• Don’t be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand. 
• Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time! 
• When you can’t create you can work. 
• Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers. 
• Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it. 
• Don’t be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only. 
• Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude. 
• Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing. 
• Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards.

10 Tips on Writing from David Ogilvy - Brainpickings.org

The better you write, the higher you go in Ogilvy & Mather. People who think well, write well.
Woolly minded people write woolly memos, woolly letters and woolly speeches.
Good writing is not a natural gift. You have to learn to write well. Here are 10 hints:  

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing. Read it three times.
2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.
3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.
5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.
6. Check your quotations.
7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it. 8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.
9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.
10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.