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Identifying the Pyramid and Power of Inbound Marketing: Attracting Your Ideal Customers

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Identifying the Pyramid and Power of Inbound Marketing: Attracting Your Ideal Customers

In today's hyper-connected and increasingly competitive business environment, the way companies connect with their target audience has undergone significant changes. While traditional outbound marketing, characterized by its "push" approach, which broadcasts messages through methods such as cold calls, television ads, or direct mail, still plays a role in some strategies, a more effective, customer-focused, and growing alternative has proven to be highly successful in customer acquisition in B2B and B2C markets – Inbound Marketing. 

Inbound marketing is a strategic method that aims to attract prospects to your website and brand by providing valuable, relevant content and experiences carefully tailored to their specific needs and interests. Inbound Marketing operates on the principle of permission marketing, where potential customers are drawn in by helpful and relevant information, organically leading them through their buyer's journey. 

This methodology fosters trust and credibility, positioning businesses as thought leaders and problem solvers in their respective industries. The long-term benefits include not only increased customer acquisition but also enhanced customer loyalty, improved brand perception, and more efficient marketing spend due to better targeting and higher conversion rates. 

The Fundamental Difference: Inbound vs. Outbound – A Paradigm Shift

The distinction between inbound and outbound marketing is not merely semantic; it represents a clear and profoundly impactful difference in philosophy and approach:

  • Outbound Marketing: The "Push" Approach: This traditional approach involves bringing your offering to your prospects, often through methods that can feel intrusive or unsolicited. Examples include cold calling, conventional advertising (such as television, radio, and print media), direct mail campaigns, and trade shows. It's frequently perceived as a more aggressive, "pushy," and often one-way communication style.
  • Inbound Marketing: The "Pull" Approach: In stark contrast, inbound marketing is about bringing your prospects to you. It's a deliberate strategy focused on attracting them organically through the provision of valuable content and genuinely helpful resources, allowing them to discover your brand and offerings on their own terms, at their own pace. It respects the customer's journey and empowers them to seek information.

Striking the Perfect Balance: Inbound and Outbound Marketing at Markethive

At Markethive, we advocate for a sophisticated marketing strategy that centers around an inbound approach, thoughtfully integrated with strategic outbound tactics. This philosophy recognizes the evolving landscape of consumer behavior, where genuine engagement and value-driven interactions are paramount. While the core of our methodology is inbound-focused, we recognize the critical role that outbound marketing plays in broadening our reach and initiating initial contact with potential buyers.

Leveraging Outbound for Initial Reach:

Our outbound strategy leverages powerful channels, including the Banner Program. This program allows our members to purchase banner impressions through the Banner Impressions Exchange, a dynamic marketplace designed to maximize visibility. These strategically placed banners are displayed both internally within the Markethive ecosystem and externally across a vast network of domains. 

This dual-pronged approach ensures that your business gains significant exposure, effectively getting your brand and offerings in front of a diverse and relevant audience of potential buyers. The purpose of this initial outbound push is not to sell directly, but to generate awareness and pique interest, setting the stage for a more nuanced engagement.

The Power of Inbound for Nurturing and Conversion:

Once initial contact is made through outbound efforts, Markethive's comprehensive suite of inbound tools takes center stage. Here, the focus shifts dramatically from direct selling to assisting with the buyer's journey. This is where our philosophy truly shines. Instead of immediately asking for a sale, we empower you to provide valuable content, insights, and solutions that guide potential customers through their decision-making process.

This inbound-centric approach is highly effective because it aligns with modern consumer preferences. People are inherently more likely to engage with and ultimately commit to a brand that demonstrates a genuine desire to help them understand their needs, explore options, and navigate the buying process. By offering educational resources, insightful articles, interactive tools, and personalized support, you build trust, establish credibility, and position yourself as a valuable resource rather than just a salesperson. This fosters a relationship based on mutual understanding and value, dramatically increasing the likelihood of conversion.

The Synergy of Inbound and Outbound:

The true strength of the Markethive approach comes from the synergy between inbound and outbound marketing. Outbound strategies serve as the starting point, attracting a broad audience to your business. Inbound then takes the lead, converting these initial contacts into engaged leads by offering the information and support they need to make informed choices. 

This combined approach ensures a steady flow of potential customers, guiding them smoothly from awareness to loyal advocacy. By effectively balancing these two strategies, Markethive enables its members to build sustainable businesses, foster strong customer relationships, and achieve long-term success in the competitive digital landscape.

Key Components of a Comprehensive Inbound Marketing Strategy: A Synergistic Ecosystem

A truly comprehensive and effective inbound marketing strategy is not a singular tactic but rather a sophisticated integration of various digital marketing tactics. These components are designed to work synergistically, creating a seamless and holistic customer journey that aims to achieve the ultimate goal of attracting, engaging, and converting customers into loyal advocates. These critical components often include:

  • Content Creation (Blogging, E-books, Video, and Beyond): This is the foundation of inbound marketing. Consistently generating high-quality, informative, and engaging content is vital for attracting and educating your audience. It encompasses various formats, including insightful blog posts, detailed articles, attractive infographics, authoritative white papers, comprehensive e-books, engaging videos, podcasts, and interactive tools. This content should be carefully designed to address common customer questions, resolve their pain points, and provide practical, relevant solutions that align with your target market's needs. The goal is to showcase expertise and deliver real value before making any sales pitches.
     
  • Email Marketing: Nurturing Relationships and Guiding the Journey: Once a prospect shows initial interest, such as downloading an e-book or subscribing to a newsletter, email marketing becomes a crucial tool for building that early relationship. Through targeted email campaigns, businesses can continue to send valuable content, share relevant updates, introduce new products or services, and gently guide prospects through the various stages of the buyer's journey, ultimately turning them from curious visitors into engaged leads and satisfied customers.
     
  • Marketing Automation: Streamlining Efficiency and Personalizing Engagement: This advanced technology aims to simplify and automate repetitive marketing tasks, freeing up valuable personnel and ensuring consistent, timely communication. It includes automated email dispatches based on user actions, scheduled social media posts, and complex lead nurturing workflows that provide personalized content to prospects at the optimal moment in their decision-making journey, regardless of their position in the sales funnel. Automation guarantees that no lead is overlooked and that communication remains relevant.
     
  • Social Media Monitoring & Publishing: Building Community and Amplifying Reach: Engaging actively with your audience on key social media platforms is crucial for enhancing brand awareness, fostering a sense of community, and driving meaningful traffic to your website. Besides sharing engaging content, keeping track of social media discussions offers crucial real-time insights into customer opinions, new industry trends, competitor actions, and opportunities for direct engagement and customer support. Social media is a two-way channel for building connections.
     
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Ensuring Discoverability and Visibility: Optimizing your website and all your content for major search engines is crucial for ensuring that your target audience can easily find you when they are actively searching for information, products, or services related to your offerings. This involves a comprehensive approach, which includes conducting detailed keyword research to identify relevant terms, building high-quality, authoritative backlinks from reputable websites, maintaining a technically sound and fast-loading website, and continually optimizing content to align with user intent. Effective SEO makes your "magnet" visible to those already searching for what you provide.
     
  • Analytics and ROI Measurement: Data-Driven Optimization: Being able to track the performance of your inbound marketing efforts is crucial for understanding what's truly effective, what can be improved, and where to allocate resources best. Strong analytics tools provide detailed insights into key metrics, including website traffic sources, lead generation numbers, conversion rates at each stage, user behavior patterns, and, importantly, the exact return on investment (ROI) of your marketing activities. This data-driven feedback loop enables ongoing refinement and optimization of strategies, ensuring maximum effectiveness and efficiency.
     
  • Landing Pages: Capturing Leads with Purpose: These are highly focused, standalone web pages carefully created with a single goal: to collect lead information, such as name and email address, in exchange for a valuable offer, such as an e-book, a webinar registration, a free trial, or a Promo Code. Landing pages are crucial tools for conversion, transforming anonymous website visitors into identifiable leads that can be further nurtured and developed.
     
  • Content Management System (CMS): The Organizational Backbone: A robust Content Management System (CMS) is indispensable for efficiently organizing, publishing, and optimizing all your content assets. It simplifies the process of managing your entire inbound marketing ecosystem, from blog posts and landing pages to email templates and calls-to-action, ensuring consistency and ease of updates.

The Evolving Landscape of the Buyer's Journey 

The Buyer's Journey, a key concept in marketing, has undergone significant evolution since its introduction in 1968. What was once considered a simple, step-by-step process has become complex and multi-layered, mainly due to the rise and widespread influence of the internet. Today's consumers are more empowered and informed, with unparalleled access to information, which necessitates a customer-focused approach to inbound marketing.

The traditional model of the Buyer's Journey outlined a series of clear, step-by-step stages a customer would go through from initial awareness to making a final purchase. However, in today's digital age, these stages have become less distinct, making the journey more flexible and adaptable. Consumers no longer passively absorb information; instead, they actively seek it out, researching products and services, comparing options, and engaging with brands on their own terms. This shift requires businesses to adjust their strategies to provide consistent, relevant, and valuable content at every stage of the customer journey.

The Online Arena: A Golden Opportunity for Inbound Marketers

The modern Buyer's Journey mostly happens online. This presents an excellent opportunity for inbound marketers to go beyond traditional advertising and genuinely support potential buyers throughout their decision-making process. By creating custom content that addresses specific needs and challenges at each stage, businesses can attract, engage, and ultimately meet the needs of their target audience. This approach not only builds trust but also positions the company as a credible and helpful resource.

The Three Pillars of the Inbound Buyer's Journey

Despite the increased complexity, the core stages of the Inbound Buyer's Journey remain foundational:

  1. Awareness Stage: During this initial phase, the buyer recognizes a problem or need but may not fully understand its nature or extent. Their online research aims to identify the problem, understand its implications, and gather basic information. This stage involves searching for answers, educational resources, research data, expert opinions, and insightful content that help define their challenge. Content at this stage should be informative, focused on solving problems, and not overly promotional. Examples include blog posts addressing common pain points, informational guides, and industry reports.
     
  2. Consideration Stage: After the buyer clearly identifies their problem, they enter the consideration stage. During this phase, their research becomes more detailed and focused. They actively seek specific solutions to their problems and compare various options available on the market. This involves evaluating the features and benefits of multiple products or services to determine the best fit for their specific needs. At this stage, buyers seek detailed information, case studies, product comparisons, and testimonials to understand the advantages and disadvantages of various approaches. They also begin to identify potential solution providers, partners, or vendors.
     
  3. Decision Stage: After thorough research and evaluation, the buyer reaches the decision point. They have consumed enough expert and trust-building content to shortlist potential providers. At this crucial moment, they are ready to confidently choose with whom to work or from whom to purchase. The content here should be compelling, offering clear reasons why a specific solution is the best choice. This includes product demos, free trials, consultations, success stories, and strong calls to action. The aim is to give all the needed information and reassurance for the buyer to finalize their commitment.

Inbound marketing is strategically aligned with the Buyer's Journey. Its main goal is to help prospects naturally discover a business during the early stages of their journey. By offering valuable content that educates them on the benefits of a specific solution, inbound marketing builds trust throughout the entire process. This ongoing cultivation of trust, from initial awareness to final decision, is essential in turning a curious prospect into a loyal customer. It's about being a helpful guide rather than a pushy salesperson, empowering the buyer to make informed decisions at their own pace.

The Inbound Marketing Pyramid

The Inbound Marketing Pyramid is a strategic framework that outlines the different levels of content creation and distribution, moving from foundational, in-depth resources to more frequent, bite-sized interactions. Each level builds upon the previous one, aiming to attract, engage, and delight potential customers by providing valuable information at various stages of their buyer's journey.

Here's a more detailed look at each level:

1: Primary/Secondary Research and Information Publication: Books, eBooks, Articles, Press Releases, and White Papers.
The top level represents the most authoritative and in-depth content. It's where you establish your expertise and thought leadership. This content is typically the result of extensive research, data analysis, and original insights.

  • Books and eBooks: Offer comprehensive dives into a subject, providing extensive knowledge and a holistic understanding. They position your organization as a go-to authority.
  • Articles (Long-Form and Academic): While still in-depth, these can be more focused on specific topics within your broader expertise. They often present research findings, new methodologies, or detailed case studies.
  • Press Releases: Announce significant news, product launches, or company milestones to generate media attention and build credibility.
  • White Papers: These are persuasive, in-depth reports on a specific problem and its solution. They are designed to educate and inform potential customers, often serving as lead generation tools. 

2: Long-Form Blog Posts, Video Presentations, and Authoritative Commenting.
This level focuses on breaking down foundational knowledge into more accessible yet still substantial formats. This content aims to engage audiences who are actively seeking solutions or a deeper understanding.

  • Long-Form Blog Posts: These are detailed explorations of specific topics, typically ranging from 1,000 to 3,000 words or more. They provide valuable insights, answer common questions, and demonstrate practical applications of your expertise. They are crucial for SEO and driving organic traffic.
  • Video Presentations (Webinars, Tutorials): Video is a highly engaging medium for conveying complex information. Webinars enable live interaction and Q&A, while tutorials provide step-by-step guidance. They cater to visual and auditory learners and can significantly boost engagement.
  • Authoritative Commenting: Engaging in thoughtful, insightful discussions on industry blogs, forums, and social media platforms can establish your presence as an expert and drive traffic back to your own content. It demonstrates active participation in your field.

3: Image Inventories, Infographics, Pitch Decks, and Slide Shares.
This level emphasizes visual content, which is highly effective for conveying information quickly and memorably. Visuals enhance engagement and make complex data more digestible.
Image Inventories: A collection of high-quality, relevant images that can be used across all content types. A consistent visual style reinforces brand identity.

  • Infographics: Highly shareable visual representations of data, statistics, or complex processes. They simplify information and make it more appealing, often going viral on social media.
  • Pitch Decks: Professional presentations, often used for sales or investor meetings, that succinctly convey key information and value propositions. They can be shared publicly (with appropriate modifications) to educate and attract new audiences.
  • SlideShares: Uploading presentations (such as pitch decks or webinar slides) to platforms like SlideShare expands their reach and makes them discoverable to a broader audience.

4: Short-Form Blog Posts, Subscriptions, and Member Contributions.
At this stage, the focus shifts to more frequent and accessible content that keeps your audience engaged and nurtures relationships.

  • Short-Form Blog Posts: These are quick, digestible updates, news items, or opinion pieces, typically under 1,000 words. They maintain a consistent content flow and address timely topics, encouraging regular visits to your site.
  • Subscriptions (Email Newsletters): Building an email list through subscriptions allows for direct communication with your audience. Newsletters can deliver curated content, exclusive insights, and updates, fostering a loyal community.
  • Member Contributions (Guest Posts, Community Forums): Encouraging contributions from community members, either through guest blogging or active participation in forums, builds a sense of community and provides fresh perspectives. This also leverages user-generated content.

5: Social Media Posts and Curated Content.
The bottom of the pyramid represents the most frequent and immediate interactions. This level focuses on achieving a broad reach, fostering quick engagement, and driving traffic back to your more in-depth content.

  • Social Media Posts: Short, engaging updates designed for platforms like Facebook, X, LinkedIn, and Instagram. These can include links to your longer content, quick tips, industry news, and calls to action. The goal is to capture attention and direct users to more in-depth resources.
  • Curated Content: Sharing relevant and valuable content from other industry leaders or reputable sources. This not only provides value to your audience but also positions you as a helpful resource, fostering relationships with other thought leaders. It demonstrates that you're well-informed and connected within your industry.

By strategically developing and distributing content at each level of the Inbound Marketing Pyramid, businesses can effectively attract, engage, and convert their target audience, ultimately building brand authority and driving sustainable growth.

Markethive: The Next-Gen Market Network 

Markethive leads the inbound marketing revolution with over 25 years of experience. This long history allows it to evolve continuously, adapting to the ever-changing marketing landscape. What truly sets Markethive apart is its proactive use of cutting-edge Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency. This innovative approach positions Markethive as a leader, particularly when many traditional marketing platforms continue to rely on outdated methods.

At its core, Markethive delivers a robust and proven inbound marketing platform designed to empower entrepreneurs and businesses of all sizes. The platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools meticulously crafted to guide individuals through the buyer's journey, from initial awareness to becoming loyal customers. These essential functionalities include:

  • Email Autoresponders: Automate and personalize email campaigns to nurture leads and build strong customer relationships.
  • Blogging Platforms: Create and publish engaging content to attract organic traffic and establish thought leadership.
  • Content Management Service: Efficiently organize, manage, and optimize all digital content for maximum impact.
  • Landing Pages: Design high-converting landing pages to capture leads and drive specific actions.
  • Social Media Broadcasting: Seamlessly distribute content across various social media channels to expand reach and engagement.
  • Tracking Analytics: Gain valuable insights into campaign performance, user behavior, and overall marketing effectiveness.
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization): Optimize content and website for higher search engine rankings, increasing visibility and organic traffic.
  • Backlink Automation: Automate the process of acquiring high-quality backlinks to enhance SEO efforts further.
  • Messaging: Facilitate direct and personalized communication with prospects and customers.
  • E-commerce: Integrate robust e-commerce solutions to facilitate online sales and transactions.

The collective benefit of these integrated systems is to seamlessly "attract" potential customers, "convert" them into leads, "close" sales opportunities, and ultimately "delight" them, fostering a loyal and long-term customer base.

Beyond Marketing: A Collaborative Community and Income-Generating Ecosystem

Markethive transcends the traditional definition of a marketing platform. It is a next-generation ecosystem that fosters a vibrant community of aspiring entrepreneurs and marketers. This is achieved through:

  • Multiple Commerce Platforms/Supergroups: Providing diverse avenues for conducting business and generating revenue.
  • Digital Media Sites: Offering various channels for content dissemination and community engagement.
  • Social Network: A dedicated social network that brings together like-minded individuals, encouraging a collaborative mindset and shared growth.

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Markethive, and a testament to its forward-thinking vision, is its focus on providing income-generating opportunities for all members. Built on the secure and transparent foundation of blockchain, Markethive is uniquely positioned to reward members, via micropayments, bounties and faucets for all their activity within the platform, and directly allocated to the member's Markethive wallet. This applies whether a member is using the free services or has upgraded to one of the loyalty programs or memberships. This innovative approach reflects Markethive's core belief in sharing resources to empower its community. 

Vision of Shared Success

Markethive's philosophy is based on the belief that sharing resources and helping individuals grow their businesses and reach their goals benefits everyone. This spirit of collaboration is reflected in their welcoming message: “We welcome all to our collaborative world and ecosystem for the Entrepreneur, Markethive, the Market Network, built for you, by you, and with you.” It's a testament to a platform designed not just to serve, but to empower, creating a mutually beneficial environment where collective success is the ultimate aim.

 
 

Editor in Chief Markethive: Deb Williams. (Australia) I thrive on progress and champion freedom of speech.  I embrace "Change" with a passion, and my purpose in life is to enlighten people to accept and move forward with enthusiasm. Find me at my Markethive Profile Page | My Twitter Account | and my LinkedIn Profile.

 

 

 

 

 

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The Key To Generating Quality Leads

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The Key To Generating Quality Leads

Generating high-quality leads is critical for a successful online business. It can separate you from your competition in a big way. To be sure you are getting the best leads possible, follow these easy procedures.

 

Step One

Make sure that you are targeting your advertising so that it’s reaching your ‘Target Market.' For example, if you’re selling fishing gear, your ads would most likely do well in publications, blogs, and groups targeting fishing enthusiasts, as opposed to spending your time and money advertising on a children’s clothing site.

The ads you are running, and the links you share need to direct the prospects to a ‘Capture Page’ and not a ‘Registration Page.' Often, Network marketers will make the mistake of advertising a page showing a compensation plan. Instead, they should make sure their ad links visitors to a page where they can capture their interest so they will fill out a form to get more information.

High-quality leads are people who clicked on your ad because they are interested in learning more. Then, they completed your capture form to request additional information.

 
Step Two

Begin developing a relationship with your leads. Show them that you know and understand their challenges and can provide a solution. When someone completes your form, that is no guarantee that they will buy from you. However, it is a guarantee that you now have an opportunity to build rapport and add value. The chances of this lead buying from you increase the more they feel they know, like, and trust you.

When one of your high quality leads contacts you with a question, make sure you respond timely. Many sales are made because someone followed up with the prospect. This is why it is said the fortune is in the follow-up!

When you have a blog or website, and regularly provide up-to-date focused information, you're taking significant steps to produce high-quality leads for your products and services. These leads you generate are MUCH better than any you could buy. Investing the time to build your list of high-quality leads will take your business to the next level.

The perfect complement to a Quality Lead Generation system is Markethive. Members have access to an all-inclusive system where they do not need to leave the platform for the extras that complement their marketing efforts and business facilitation. Markethive is a complete e-commerce system – The Social Market Network.


 
Markethive members will have available multiple traffic portals to enhance their efforts of building an online enterprise. Coming soon is the Markethive Coin Exchange. This traffic portal is a freelancing platform along with a video, voice, copywriting platform. 

The Markethive Exchange will be integrated into the social network, to be used as an Inbound Marketing target. Markethive Entrepreneurs will be able to offer commission-free trades via promo codes. The promo codes will bind the customer to the designated Markethive Entrepreneur.
Another Markethive platform will sell services only (not goods), is designed to promote artists' copywriting, videography services, and voice-overs talent. Additionally, other commerce platform traffic portals will include a news service that sells article publishing and press release publishing that will also be displayed on the Markethive home page and Markethive.net.

Notably, because of the blockchain and coin exchange, transactions, and communications between buyer and seller will be left to the seller's discretion within the platforms. Transactions are not controlled by Markethive. These are peer to peer transactions and are kept private.

 

In summary;

Markethive is a dynamic integrated amalgamation of a social network like (Facebook, LinkedIn), Inbound Marketing platforms like (Hubspot and Marketo), commerce portals like (eBay and Amazon) and Digital Media Publisher like (Cointelegraph and Bitcoin.com). It's also an Advertising Agency with experts working together with their clients to collect data. This results in the development of whatever the client needs, including Press Releases, articles or blogs, banners, images, and research.

Markethive is a formidable secure blockchain platform that includes built-in incentives and games. The goal is to deliver a dynamic collection of cohesive business gateways to create revenue sources, a sphere of authority, quality backlinks, and a growing list of top tier leads.

For any additional information or to become a Free Member, Click on the Banner below:

 
 
ecosystem for entrepreneurs    

 

Written by Gene Aasen
Entrepreneur 1 and Writer for Markethive.com, the social, market, broadcasting network.  I’m a strong advocate of the Markethive mission for technology, world progress, and freedom of speech. I support change and endeavor to help others understand, grow, and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals. 

 

 
 
 

 
 

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THE INBOUNDOUTBOUND MARKETING EVOLUTION -THE BUYER’SJOURNEY

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THE INBOUND/OUTBOUND MARKETING EVOLUTION – THE BUYER'S JOURNEY

 

My introduction to online marketing consisted of a training course that heavily focused on a form of email marketing, mainly safelists, which I found to be a very confusing and overwhelming strategy that involved numerous email accounts and hundreds of advertising sites that took up all my time with very little results. After a while, I felt totally disillusioned and burned out with that and turned to social media marketing of sorts which was okay for a while but then became frustrating and nonsensical. 

Then by chance, I came across Inbound Marketing and it all made sense to me. “Inbound marketing” was a term coined by Hubspot which was founded in 2005, but invented and established nearly a decade earlier by Markethive (operating as Veretekk) way back in 1996 and known as Automated Marketing. For many companies needing to cater to the customer and prospects’ needs and as competition became more fierce they turned to inbound marketing to help give them the edge. 

 

Outbound Marketing

Prior to inbound marketing, we relied upon more traditional methods known as Outbound Marketing which included TV, radio and print ads, billboards, etc. Then with the internet, came paid and rented email lists, banner and display ads, most social media advertising, pop-ups, and pop-unders, etc. In direct contrast to Inbound marketing, these tactics have traditionally been thought of as interruptions and frowned upon, labeled as invasive, and often seen as driving an ideal buyer away. 

Outbound marketing aims at trying to reach as many people as possible, whether or not they are active buyers and in some cases has its merits. 

 

 

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy by which you drive prospects to your website rather than outwardly advertising your products or services. The idea is that bringing potential customers to your website will familiarize them with your brand and offerings through targeted content, tailored to the needs and basic questions of people and offering solutions. Ideally, you’ll build a virtual relationship with the prospect, making it more likely that they will choose your product or service when they’re ready to buy. 

Typically inbound marketing involves blogging or content creation and integrates email marketing, marketing automation, social media monitoring & publishing, SEO, and analytics all in one. It incorporates landing pages and a content management system that assists you in optimizing your content. 

Outbound marketing brings your offering to your prospects. Inbound marketing brings your prospects to you. 

 

Inbound Marketing is a marketing methodology focused on attracting, educating, and empowering consumers via relevant content that actually helps and guides them until they are ready to purchase your product or service. That road to purchase is the buyer’s journey, an active exploration or research process that a buyer goes through, prior to and leading up to the actual purchase.

Out With The Old – In With The New

Back in the day, when I needed to buy something I would pace the shopping mall, searching and comparing until I found what suited me. When I bought my car I went directly to the car yard, talked to the salesperson to learn my options, get answers to my questions, took it for a test drive, and bought it. 

Now I search online before I take a step out of my home and go directly to that store I found most helpful online or maybe buy it online. The way we buy is evolving and according to Google, buyers on average now conduct 70% or more of their research online to help them with a purchasing decision, even before they think about contacting someone in sales or reaching out to a company for more information on their products and services. 

With any sales and marketing method, it must continue to evolve just as consumers’ buying behaviors are evolving. So what does that mean for marketers in the digital world?

Inbound marketing is a strategic process that has several elements to it and some of those elements are not just technical but to gain an insight into the psychological aspect. We need to understand what stages a prospective buyer goes through before making a purchasing decision.

Another way of looking at it is that inbound marketing is designed to better align you and your business with the Buyer’s Journey, which is becoming the natural process that today’s buyer goes through when searching for a solution online.

The internet, along with inbound marketing platforms, has made it easier for marketers to engage customers at the various stages of their journey using content marketing. That’s one of the main reasons that 88% of B2B marketers are using custom content marketing, which is up a whopping 86% from 2015.

 

What Is The Buyer's Journey? 

The Buyer's Journey was first described in 1968, long before the internet, and was perceived as a linear process.   However, today’s customers are sophisticated, savvy consumers who do their research and the internet has made it very easy to access a wide range of information, so these stages are not so cut and dried and it is why we need to be customer-centric in our inbound marketing efforts, with consistent and current relevant content. 

Each stage of the inbound buyer’s journey requires unique content types that range from website pages and blog articles to downloadable offers and video demonstrations. So the new Buyer's journey takes place online and inbound marketers have a golden opportunity to go the extra mile by helping them reach a decision with custom content that will attract and delight the potential buyer. 

 

The three basic stages of the Inbound Buyer's Journey are Awareness, Consideration, and Decision. 

  1. Awareness Stage: Through online research, the buyer is trying to identify their own problems and looking for answers, resources, education, research data, opinions, and insight.  
  2. Consideration Stage: Once the buyer has identified their problem, they begin more heavy research of specific solutions for that problem, whether it’s a good fit for them which leads them to potential solution providers, partners, or vendors.
  3. Decision Stage: After engaging with enough expert, trust-building content, the buyer can filter their solution provider list down and make a confident decision in who they want to work with or buy from.

Inbound marketing is designed to help prospects discover your business in the early stages of the Buyer’s Journey and to educate them on the benefits of your solution for them, all while building trust throughout the process.

 

The Strengths Of Inbound

Although inbound marketing is the preferred method and considered to be more successful due to its not only holistic but an empathic approach, outbound marketing, albeit marketer centric, still has a place, and to determine which one suits your purpose, you need to consider your specific business, audience, and marketing objectives. 

One of the biggest advantages of inbound marketing and what gives it substance is that it focuses on providing value for prospects. It’s educational and in some cases non-promotional and as inbound marketing aligns with the Buyer's Journey, it builds a relationship between your prospects and brand and is not seen as an annoying interruption. Rather it helps the buyer as they are already researching and obviously ready to buy.

Another major strength of inbound marketing is the long term return on investment (ROI) Whether it be sweat equity or money that you’ve invested, this strategy tends to have slower results for the first few months, however, those initial stages are necessary to build your digital marketing assets. It allows you to build your presence online and rank higher in the search engines. 

Eventually, the value of those assets will increase and your outlay to maintain or improve will be less. Digital assets like blog articles and perpetual choice offers can continue to generate leads years after they were originally created without costing an extra cent. 

 

What About Outbound?

The biggest strength of outbound marketing is its ability to get in front of a large number of people quickly and build awareness. When it’s done correctly, you can launch an outbound marketing campaign, get seen by millions, and have new customers within a few weeks, but the results usually depend on the amount of money you invest. 

The more you spend, the more results you get and when you stop investing, the results diminish. With outbound marketing, you don’t accumulate many tangible, long-term assets that continue to generate leads as you do with Inbound marketing. Plus, these days, outbound is generally more disliked by the consumer.

Having said that, there are businesses that have found great success by using inbound or outbound exclusively. There are many that have utilized both consecutively and have had tremendous results. Your marketing strategy really depends on your market, your type of buyer, and your goals. 

 

What Are Your Goals? 

What are you trying to achieve? Do you want to build brand awareness? Drive traffic? How many customers are you aiming to get and what’s your timeline for that goal?

Inbound marketing is the best long-term strategy, however, it will take time and probably won’t dramatically increase business in the first few months. 

Outbound marketing, on the other hand, can help you get customers in the door quickly, but it comes with diminishing returns.

Ideally, the best strategy is to combine a little of both, by taking an inbound approach to both, using outbound for brand awareness, following up with inbound for relationship, and brand-building.

This means you are measuring results accurately and you’re aiming for long-term brand-building alongside short-term growth.

 

Looking After Your Brand And Reputation

It’s important to consider how the tactics you deploy will affect your brand’s image. Launching an aggressive cold-calling campaign or obnoxiously posting fruitless or misleading advertisements too much on peoples’ newsfeeds may get a few sales, but how will that affect your reputation long-term? 

You only want to use marketing tactics that your brand can be proud of and that your customers would approve of if they knew how you executed them. More often than not, the truth comes out and it’s incredibly difficult to overcome a bad reputation.

 

Balance Your Outbound With Inbound

Here at Markethive, we believe in an inbound-focused approach that also uses outbound marketing when appropriate. This means using outbound channels like the Banner program where you can purchase banner impressions from our Banner Impressions Exchange. Your banners are displayed internally at Markethive and externally on numerous domains. 

This will successfully get your business in front of potential buyers, then by using Markethive’s inbound tools you will be focusing more on assisting with the buyer’s journey rather than selling upfront. This works because people are more likely to engage in a brand that helps them understand the buying process, instead of simply asking for their money.

The Next Generation

Markethive has been in the Inbound Marketing business for 25 years and is an ever-evolving platform. Now integrated with Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency as of 2018, it’s certainly keeping up with the changes and advances the marketing realm is experiencing with many still stuck in the old school ways. 

Markethive is always evolving and right now in the process of building a new engineering team to take its funnels (Pagemaker System) integrated into its landing pages which are groups or otherwise known as Storefronts. A self-replicating system will be added to these pages and aligning autoresponders, along with assignment rotators. This makes it Turnkey for members to just walk in and gain great results of a powerful inbound marketing campaign, utilizing another unique feature within this system – the CO-OP engine. 

Markethive delivers a proven Inbound Marketing platform outfitted with email autoresponders, blogging platforms, landing pages, social media broadcasting, Tracking analytics, SEO, backlinking automation, messaging, ecommerce, and SEO which is designed to build a large loyal long-term customer base. The benefits of these systems are to “attract”, “convert”. “close” and “delight” an individual on the buyers’ journey. 

This next-generation platform also has multiple commerce platforms, digital media sites, along a social network bringing together a community of aspiring entrepreneurs and marketers evoking a collaborative mindset. Above all its other benefits, Markethive is a concept and a vision with a focus on providing a universal income for all and being built on the blockchain allows Markethive to pay its members for all activity, regardless if you’re a free member or upgrade to one of our loyalty programs or memberships. 

We believe sharing our resources with you as you build your business and seek to reach your goals, benefits all of us. We welcome all to our collaborative world and ecosystem for the Entrepreneur, Markethive, the Market Network, built for you, by you, and with you.

 

ecosystem for entrepreneurs

 

Deb Williams
A Crypto/Blockchain enthusiast and a strong advocate for technology, progress, and freedom of speech. I embrace "change" with a passion and my purpose in life is to help people understand, accept, and move forward with enthusiasm to achieve their goals.

 

 

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Multiple Chanels How to get started on your content marketing strategy

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Multiple Channels

How to get started on your content marketing strategy

Gone are the days where content means the blog posts your company writes. Instead, content marketing now includes a diverse set of content types and multiple channels to push them through.

Chances are that if you’re already using social media, then you are doing content marketing to some extent. The next step is to get a strategy in place. This guide will walk you through why having a content marketing strategy is important and different ways you can get started on your own.

What is content marketing?

To begin with, content marketing is taking any type of content (digital or physical) and purposefully sending it out to your audience. Adding a strategy to this means that you’ve thought about your goals, audiences and distribution channels.

A typical content marketing plan will answer the below questions:

  • Who is your audience? These are usually based on market segments and certain types of content will target specific segments.

  • What channels will you use?

  • What metrics will you use to measure success and ROI?

  • What resources do you have?

  • What pain points will you solve?

Types of content

There are quite a few types of content out there now with new channels being developed every year. Part of being a good content marketer is being able to learn new types and be open to experimentation. Relatively new to the scene is user-generated social media content that can be used as part of your strategy.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list to help you think about what type of content your company has access to:

  • Company blog posts

  • Branded blog posts

  • User-generated content like an Instagram post

  • Videos

  • Podcasts

  • Whitepapers

  • Case studies

  • Infographics

  • Photos

  • Webinars

  • Quizzes

  • Press releases

  • News and magazine articles

Types of channels

How will you get the word out about your content? You can publish all the white papers you want but no one will see them if you’re not talking about them. For some channels, the line between content and channel blurs. For example, email newsletters are an excellent way of promoting your branded content. But, some brands also include unique content in the newsletter’s body. There is no right or wrong way to approach this. If you find that mixing it up works for your company, then go ahead and do it.

Some common channels include:

  • Email

  • Social media

  • Pamphlets

  • Search engine ads

  • Website

The most common channel is email, with 82% of marketers reporting it as the most effective. This is not-so-closely followed by social media at 54% and website/blog at 51%.

What does this mean for you? If you’re just starting out, use this as a jumping point on where to focus your beginning efforts. Start with one or two channels and expand as you feel more comfortable.

What resources are available?

Before you start diving into all of the content possibilities, take a step back and look at what resources you have available to you. Are you a marketing team of one or ten? What skill sets are already on your team? Does your marketing budget have room to hire a professional content creator?

You shouldn’t get into producing videos if you don’t have the available skills nor the budget for a videographer. Keep in mind that time is also a resource. New content types take time to learn, experiment with and create.

Next, think about who can generate this content. Don’t limit it to only the marketing team. Your sales and support teams will know what pains the customer or business goes through, too. All of the departments should have some content ideas that can be developed.

Develop your content marketing strategy

There are many ways to get started in developing your strategy. Here, we’ll offer three ways to get started. It’s possible that you’ve done some of this work already. In that case, repurpose your previous research and put it to use here.

1. Define your goals & metrics

The start of any new strategy begins with knowing what goals you have in mind. In content marketing, multiple goals are common and are often matched with content types and channels. And for each goal, you’ll need to define metrics that are used to measure success.

For example, one of your content marketing goals may be to increase your trial signups. To do this, you’d plan on creating case studies that will be published on your website and shared via social media. The case study includes text, photos, a downloadable PDF and video. Your sales team will use the link to share success studies with potential clients and your social media team will use the different media formats to repeatedly promote the case study.

This content matrix from Ninetyblack provides a graphical guide to where content can fall. The matrix may look different for your business. Quizzes are usually designed to be entertaining and can be a useful way to spread brand awareness.

2. Audit your current content

What’s working for you now? If you already have some branded content, conduct a content audit to help you understand what has and hasn’t been successful. The audit should include the actual content links and distribution channels.

Perhaps you’ve produced a few videos but they’ve only been published to YouTube. You’ve found that the audience is receptive to the videos. At this point, you may notice that a few videos have call-to-action links in the captions that lead back to your website. These videos not only were watched but people clicked on them to learn more. This discovery could potentially lead you to add more links into your captions for more cross-channel promotions.

In a Content Marketing Institute’s 2018 trends report, B2B marketers credited content creation and strategy as the top two factors in their content marketing success. Note that for content creation, it’s specified to be higher quality and more efficient. Low-quality content doesn’t cut it anymore especially if your competition is also focused on content marketing.

If your content was mostly pushed through social media channels, performing a social media audit may be beneficial to you. This way, you can see what type of content performed well and duplicate the similarities.

3. Map your customer journey

Certain types of content work best at points of a customer journey. A helpful product troubleshooting video won’t be as interesting to a potential customer in the awareness phase as it is for someone who has already purchased. Being aware that it exists, however, may help move the decision along.

This Boston Interactive checklist shows the various content types that match a customer’s purchase phase.

Remember, though, that a customer’s journey doesn’t end at the purchase. Past the purchase point, there’s still retention and support that need content marketing, too.

Bright Vessel illustrates their version of a customer journey map, indicating where each department plays a role. This exercise makes you reflect on every customer touchpoint.

Mapping this for your brand helps you understand where your content can be best served. Once you have the map down, then your content can be further tweaked and adjusted to reflect your audience and their journey status.

Implement & review your content marketing strategy

Now that you have three ways to brainstorm your strategy, the next steps are to document and implement it. With documentation, you’ll have a way to reference and steer your future content. If your strategy was to promote your blog posts on both social media and email newsletters but you find that newsletters are receiving a lot of engagement, you may look into increasing the send frequency or creating a subscriber list for only the blog.

Many content marketing calendars are overviews of content that’s planned for the year. They’ll often list the content, type, audience, customer phase and distribution channel(s), along with the publishing dates. This all-in-one calendar type is helpful for big picture planning.

Once you’ve drawn up the calendar, you’ll still need to listen and distribute it, and this is where social media plays a big role. A social media-minded content marketing strategy incorporates both social monitoring and publishing.

Markethive helps with both of these objectives. Through the Google calendar features, you can see when content is distributed and across which channels. For well-performing posts, Markethive makes it easy to republish the content with just a few clicks.

To monitor the topics your audience cares about, you use branded keywords and search options to see who’s talking about you and to curate content for redistribution. Content marketing doesn’t have to only include branded content. It also includes content that’s published about you or industry-adjacent news. Searching for topics in your industry in Advanced Google Search helps you easily identify & curate the content that your audience cares about.

Setup Google Alerts to keep you aware when others talk about your business and industry. Like Markethive and “Inbound Marketing”. Make sure you have a Disqus account, so you can engage blogs utilizing Disqus alerts and search for industries and blogs and articles that mention you.

In the end, content marketing strategies vary from business to business. The advice given here is meant to be a framework to begin your content marketing strategy, not as set-in-stone rules. As you begin this journey, you’ll find that some strategies or content don’t work for you and that’s okay. Having both defined goals and a plan in hand will go a long way in starting your strategy.

Thomas Prendergast
CEO Founder

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My Advice On Building a Link Building Strategy

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My Advice On Building a Link Building Strategy

Link building is a crucial element when it comes to SEO (search engine optimization). 


Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay 

The reason for this is clear:

A link building strategy gets you traffic to your site and greatly improves your search engine rankings. 

If you can obtain a link from another site to your site, this signals to the almighty search engines that you have something worth taking a look at and they move you closer to the front of the line. The more links you get, the closer you get to the first page of search engine results when someone does a search for a relevant term. And once you are on that first page, you will start getting more traffic. 

"So, What should be the components of a good link building strategy?" You ask.

1. Valuable Content

One of the best ways to get inbound links is to ensure that your site offers valuable information to your visitors or valuable reference pages that relate to your business. . .or both. Once you have proven that you have quality content, other website owners will link to your site without you having to go out and ask them to do so.

Make sure your link building strategy includes a concerted effort to always provide information your particular market is interested in. If you know your market well, identify the kind of informations they are interested in and give it to them.

2. Keywork Related 

Make sure your content is not only informative and valuable but also related to keywords that direct relate to your market's interests.

Keep in mind that the highest quality links are those that are connected by a keyword or keyword phrase, not links that go from another site straight to your simple domain name. So, for example, if someone links from his site www.ABC.com to your site www.DEF.com, this counts for something. But not as much if the same person links the text "red apples" from an article in his site to your article on red apples within your site.

3. Outbound Linking

Many marketers often ignore outbound linking but for a comprehensive strategy, it is worth including it in your overall strategy.

Choosing to do some outbound linking (you linking to another site) provides additional value to your readers and inspires others to link back to you. This also contributes to your link building strategy and is viewed well by the search engines. Don't overdo it though. Just one or a couple of links per page will be fine. 

4. Join Forums and/or Networks

This may seem out of place in a Link Building Strategy but the reality is that Forums and Networks offer you easy opportunities to get valuable linkbacks to your blog/web site content. The secret here is to first, learn how the forum/network operates and what behaviours it will allow, and then engage with other members. This can be time consuming but once you start contributing and helping members in your market, you will find lots of opportunities to suggest links to your content. The fundamental principle here is to be helpful.

Having said this, there are many forums I could suggest, like Warrior Forum, however, there is one absolute must network you should never do without. It is called MARKETHIVE  and it's tools are absolutely FREE to use. Every marketing strategy should include its priceless features.

SIDEBAR: You can also try link building services although it's important to do your research first. If you choose the wrong service, it can get you penalized by the search engines. It's easy to see why people do opt for these types of services–link building is a long, tedious process and hiring someone else to do the grunt work may be well worth the required fee. But it isn't worth it if your site ends up going backwards instead of forwards in search engine ranking.

Although going out and seeking links is somewhat frowned upon, it works. And it's a win-win situation if you come across a website that offers something of value to your target audience. It's important to keep in mind that it's not only the quantity but the quality of your links that will get you where you want to be. Also, the very best way to ensure that you will get links to your website is to create top quality content. 

These are the basics I suggest when it comes to implementing your link building strategy.

—

Maxwell Jacobs is the Owner of http://SolutionsforHomeProfits.com. Check us out anytime for marketing tips and a free subscription to our cutting edge newsletter. 

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Link Building Tools List

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Link Building Tools List

Anyone involved in Internet marketing knows that link building tools are an essential part of success. There are many such tools on the market. These kinds of programs will continue to grow as long as incoming links are so important to the life of your online presence.

 

Image by rawpixel from Pixabay

Here are just a few tools that can help you out:

1. SEOmoz Linkscape

SEOmoz Linkscape is a backlink tracking tool. If you opt for the free version, you can see how many unique links you get to each page of your website, as well as the rank of the page and of the overall domain. The paid version allows you to analyze other websites as well, such as those of your competitors. You can see how many links they get, the quality of the links, and the keywords that they are targeting, all of which is very useful in your own campaign. 

2. Yahoo Site Explorer

Yahoo Site Explorer is a well-known and popular free tool. It allows you to determine the number pages within a domain that are indexed by SLURP, Yahoo's own search engine crawler, and analyze relevant data regarding inbound links. You can also export the results you find useful into a TSV (tab-delimited file).

3. Majestic-SEO

With Majestic-SEO, you can track link information for any domain, whether it be your own, or your competitors or other sites. If you do own the domain (and you can verify it), you can get more detailed data which includes aspects such as unique links and anchor text. Similar to SEOmoz, this comes at no cost if you are taking a look at your own site and you can purchase credits to get information from other websites. Some of the data provided is downloadable, and this tool offers a "daily update" feature with an updated journal of new inbound links.

4. Raven

Raven supplies a complete set of link building tools including a Links Manager that helps you manage the link status, contacts and tasks related to each link. Another popular feature of Raven is that it automatically alerts you if any changes have occurred on an active link. For examples, if the no-follow attribute was added, if the anchor text was changed, if the rank changed, or if the link was removed. Reports and data can be generated and downloaded. 

5. BuzzStream Link Building

BuzzStream Link Building is one of the costlier packages and its main focus is to supply tools that help automate redundant tasks in relationship building, not just link building. Distinguishable features include finding contact info, tracking email, Twitter automation, managing link prospects, monitoring backlinks for anchor text, no-follows, banned words and outbound links, general tracking activities, tracking conversions, and more. The management and conversion tracking elements of BuzzStream are what makes it unique in the list of link building tools. 

There are many more such as these to be found, both free and paid, and the number available continues to rise.

BUT The Very Best Resource… 

for building links and establishing a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy is MARKETHIVE. Check it out NOW!

—

Maxwell Jacobs is the Owner of http://SolutionsforHomeProfits.com. Check us out anytime for marketing tips and a free subscription to our cutting edge newsletter. 

Markethive

MIT Graduate-led Startup Enigma Unveils Cryptocurrency Investment Platform

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MIT Graduate-led Startup Enigma Unveils Cryptocurrency Investment Platform

     California-based blockchain startup Enigma has announced the creation

of a cryptocurrencyinvestment platform that allows developers to start their own digital asset investment funds based on trading strategies that they create themselves. The platform, named Catalyst, enables developers to create investment funds where they have full control of how their digital assets are handled. Developers are free to incorporate whatever variable they see fit into the algorithms that govern their fund.

The platform is the brainchild of Silicon Valley startup Enigma that is led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) graduates. The Enigma team has previously created a different platform that aimed to give users control over their data, who has access to it and, ultimately the ability to sell the data at a profit while retaining their anonymity. Now, the Guy Zyskind-led team has set its sights on cryptocurrency trading. “A lot of people are starting to look into it, and invest in it, but it’s still very much kind of like the Wild West,” says Enigma CEO, Guy Zyskind of the cryptocurrency market. This is the reasoning behind the creation of Catalyst, which seeks to open up and demystify the cryptocurrency market to developers and investors alike.

“We are passionate about the role of cryptocurrencies in defining personal financial freedom. We want to play our part in driving their mainstream adoption. Our vision is to enable developers to build winning investment strategies, a strong track record and attract investment from community investors,” Enigma explained in their announcement. The team defines Catalyst as “a platform that empowers anyone to build their own crypto hedge fund and participate in the coming Renaissance of the financial ecosystem. Catalyst is a playground where developers, quants, and experienced traders can easily build, simulate, and eventually live trade cryptocurrencies using sophisticated programmatic strategies.”

How It Works

“To begin trading, users open payment channels with a chosen liquidity provider, in the currencies they wish to trade. Orders are then submitted to the liquidity provider that a trader chooses, and matched with an online counterparty. Finally, the assets are exchanged atomically by executing a single, cross-chain payment, routed through the liquidity provider,” the Catalyst white paper explains. The platform is designed to ensure that the investors maintain full control and ownership of their assets at all times. The platform also allows for the details of the trading

Algorithms to be kept private:

“The core of Catalyst’s architecture provides a method of performing cross-chain atomic swaps using hashed timelock contracts (HTLCs), operating under the direction of an algorithmic trade manager. This ensures that traders can maintain custody of their assets and privacy of their trading algorithms.”

The team plans to open source their infrastructure which they hope will further enhance and grow both the market and their platform. “We believe an ecosystem of multiple exchanges will further enhance the reliability of the trading infrastructure and liquidity of the underlying payment networks, while simultaneously providing an avenue for scaling beyond the throughput of a single exchange.”

Further to its vision of opening up and growing the cryptocurrency investment market, the Catalyst platform will be able to handle live trading of Initial Coin Offerings (ICO’s). “One of Catalyst‘s long-term goals is support live-trading of ICO tokens. These tokens are typically managed via an Ethereum smart contract, thus, our implementation plans to be fully compatible with the proposed Raiden Network, which enables off-chain transfers of value between Ethereum smart contracts.” or investment strategies that are able to generate high returns, the team recognizes that developers must have access to all pertinent data and addresses this through the creation of a data bank of sorts within the platform which they believe will make

The process easier:

“Developers will be able to access a large variety of data sources specifically around crypto-assets. These include price data, sentiment data, social networking data, and more. While we plan to curate the initial data sets, it is likely that most data will be generated by the community in return for incentives. Developers can utilize the myriad of data sources that will be made available through our platform to build their models, back-test them according to historical data, as well as put their strategies to the test in a simulated or real trading environment.”

Enigma hopes the platform will be attractive to developers who are interested in creating algorithms for the cryptocurrency market since they do not have to put up the initial capital themselves. “Beyond making development of crypto-trading strategies easy, our goal is to create a marketplace for trading strategies that non-developers can invest in. In this way, developers are not required to obtain capital to fund their algorithms personally. Instead, they can focus on becoming the best algo-traders they can be, while earning management and performance fees from investors that choose to invest in their strategies.”

Though the platform will initially only be available to developers with coding experience, there are plans to incorporate certain tools to allow “regular” people to create their own strategies. “In order to further lower barriers to invest in and increase adoption of crypto-assets, we will offer tools that enables individuals with no coding experience to build, test and master algorithmic trading strategies. This interface would be similar to the visual programming languages, like Scratch developed at MIT, and would provide full-functionality of the Trading SDK and connect to all existing data sources.”

To allow investors to put money into the fund with the best performance, there will be a  “web-based leaderboard ranking of all strategies deployed by developers. These will include standard return and risk metrics, such as ROI, Sharpe ratio, alpha and beta and max drawdown.” The investors have the choice to put their money in the well-performing funds, at a management fee to the fund developers, as is the practice in traditional investment funds.

Catalyst hopes to help both experienced investors and newcomers make smart cryptocurrency trading choices. “This kind of marketplace can benefit both the investors, who now have access to algorithmic trading, as well as the developers, who may lack the capital to fund their strategies personally. To the best of our knowledge, our platform will be the first to make machine-based investing accessible. Regular investors can then invest directly in winning strategies through our system.” “From a vision perspective, we would like to be able to enable the average Joes to be able to invest in these technologies as well,” added Can Kisagun, Chief Product Officer at Enigma.

Why Digital Assets Funds Are Poised to Succeed

With the steep rise in demand for both altcoins and newly issued ICO tokens, a platform such as Catalyst will likely draw investor attention once it goes live.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Digital Currency Enthusiasts Expect Ethereum to Become Larger than Bitcoin

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Digital Currency Enthusiasts Expect Ethereum to Become Larger than Bitcoin

    

Ethereum is closing in on Bitcoin in terms of market capitalization,
 
trading volume and Google Trends. In terms of other key indicators, Ethereum has already surpassed Bitcoin. This has been a longtime coming not only for Ethereum supporters, but, also, for Bitcoiners who have worried about the digital currency’s scaling issues.These flips in key indicators between the two largest cryptographic assets are tracked by a website, Flippening.watch. In the past 24 hours (at the time of writing), there have been 235,604 Ethereum transactions. But, despite wild success as a ‘peer-to-peer electronic cash’ system, there have been only 216,887 Bitcoin transactions. Ethereum’s transaction capabilities have not even been its main feature advertised by proponents. That would be its smart contract and decentralized application functions.

But, ‘the Flippening’ doesn’t stop there. Miners of ether, Ethereum’s native digital token, are enjoying more mining rewards than their bitcoin counterparts. In the last 24 hours, $9,396,000 has been rewarded to ether miners. But, just 5,302,800 has been rewarded to bitcoin miners. Moreover, there are more nodes (30,070) than Bitcoin mining nodes (7,552) as of June 11. Bitcoin’s market capitalization is still larger than Ethereum, which is 66.7% of the former’s. There are more Bitcoin’s being traded than ether, but as ShapeShift announced last week, volume of Bitcoin going into Ethereum was causing slight delays on that platform.

itcoin, despite being at an all-time high, has seen its overall share acrpss the crypto-assets complex shrink in recent months, with Ethereum closing a lot of the gap between the two while trading at all-time highs. Bitcoin has seen its growth stagnate in recent years as discussion about future development has grown heated and created rivalries within the Bitcoin creation community. Ethereum, enjoying the support of large multinational corporations and financial institutions via blockchain consortiums, can today process data faster than Bitcoin. This enables higher volume of lightweight finance pouring through the system and at less expensive rates. Currently, the average Bitcoin transaction costs about $1.50.

While Ethereum theoretically can handle lightweight finance transaction a la Bitcoin, it is proposed and designed to do much more. Smart contracts are meant to fuel decentralized applications known as dApps. Ethereum pledges smart contract and dApp technology will distribute business and legal transactions normally facilitated by banks, public registries and the legal system. Intel, Microsoft and Samsung are experimenting with Ethereum. Meanwhile, large corporations that once accepted Bitcoin on their website, have rescinded acceptance. Bitcoin’s dominance rate might be falling as its utility is falling when compared to other blockchain projects. Further, infighting within its creation community is a source for uncertainty.

While Ethereum is not a bitcoin competitor, the value of Ether is increasing as more people join the Ethereum community at a faster clip than those forming around Bitcoin. Ethereum, which is currently approaching a $30 billion network value, is swiftly closing the gap on Bitcoin’s $50 billion market cap. Assuming things stay on track, Ethereum could surpass Bitcoin’s market capitalization by the year’s end. Although Ethereum proponents will see this as a victory, and some Bitcoin proponents will see this as a failure, the reality is both systems have been very successful.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

Oil Giant BP to Test Blockchain Technology With BTL Group

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Oil Giant BP to Test Blockchain Technology With BTL Group

Oil giant BP, the world’s eighth-largest energy company by revenue

($222.8 billion), has officially begun collaborating with Canadian blockchain startup BTL Group. After a few months of successful testing, BP, Italian oil and gas company Eni, and major German energy company Wien Energie all plan to enter a six-month production phase with BTL’s Interbit platform built on top of the blockchain. The three companies will utilize the BTL blockchain platform to trade gas and oil in a transparent and secure ledger.

Before the three companies move on to commercialize BTL’s blockchain technology Interbit, blockchain developers and the group of leading energy companies aim to simulate real-life trades at a commercial rate. Trades of billions of dollars worth of gas and oil will be processed on the Interbit blockchain platform in a simulation to evaluate if the blockchain technology is capable of settling millions of data points in short periods of time with enhanced and optimal security measures. Guy Halford-Thompson, the co-founder and CEO of BTL Group, who introduced one of the first bitcoin ATMs to the UK in 2013,

said:

“Having demonstrated the reductions in risk and cost savings that are achievable we now have an opportunity to deliver the first successful blockchain based application to the energy market.”

The BTL Group is the first public blockchain company located in Canada and the UK that is focusing on the development and implementation of blockchain technology targeted towards the finance, energy and gaming sectors. Because a large number of blockchain companies and consortia are already working with leading financial institutions and banks in utilizing the blockchain to reduce transaction costs and overall expenses, developers of BTL are specifically targeting semi-financial markets.

According to Halford-Thompson, the three oil giants are also considering implementing the blockchain in other areas and operations. Relying on the decentralized and transparent nature of blockchain technology, BTL and the group of energy companies are analyzing the blockchain’s potential in reducing costs of alternative operations. For instance, on top of the conventional structure of the blockchain, various technologies such as smart contracts can be utilized to carry out or conduct agreements autonomously. With the utilization of smart contracts as demonstrated by many public blockchain projects such as Ethereum, companies like BP can automate operations that require a high level of manual work. “We are also very excited that the pilot has enabled participating companies to understand the benefits of Interbit better and identify other areas in their organizations where they can apply it,” said Halford-Thompson.

In an interview, EY partner Andrew Woosey also emphasized the importance of the pilot test of BTL’s Interbit blockchain platform led by BP. Over the past two years, the “Big Four” accounting firms including EY, PwC, Deloitte, and KPMG have been heavily involved in the blockchain sector by helping large conglomerates such as BP understand the intricacies of blockchain technology and implement it efficiently. Woosey also stated that that the group of energy companies is focusing on streamlining back office processes autonomously, ultimately to reduce risk and build resilience toward cyber threats.

“Use of such technology can help by streamlining back office processes, leading to reduced risk, better protection against cyber threats and ultimately significant cost savings. Further engineering and organizational effort are needed to achieve these outcomes,” said Woosey. Currently, a large number of energy companies are looking into the blockchain to optimize operations and reduce costs. In an interview, Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin revealed that the $92 billion mining, metals, and petroleum corporation BHP Billiton is participating in the Enterprise Ethereum Alliance to develop decentralized applications based on Ethereum.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
Please click either Link to Learn more about -Bitcoin.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Markethive

IOTA Token has Record Breaking Launch on Bitfinex, Hits $1.5 Billion Market Cap

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IOTA Token has Record Breaking Launch on Bitfinex, Hits $1.5 Billion Market Cap

    

Cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex officially launched the IOTA token

At 9:00 am Eastern Standard Time, cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex officially launched the IOTA token, IOT. Tradable in IOT/USD and IOT/BTC pairs, tokens for use with the IOTA network are now publicly accessible through the Bitfinex website. This launch represents a milestone for IOTA as they expand their user base. “Exchange listing is something that has become a hallmark for all crypto projects,” says IOTA founder David Sønstebø in conversation with CCN, “it represents that the technology is ready for the open market and the wider audience.” And looking at the numbers from the launch, it seems the open market was ready for IOTA.

Consumer Anticipation

After Bitfinex’s announcement on June 4, 2017, regarding the listing of IOT, user demand became readily apparent. The staff at Bitfinex found themselves ‘inundated with requests for details,” explained Bitfinex representative Brandon Carps, “We’ve yet to see this many requests for details on a token listing.” These inquiries lead to an unprecedented amount of support tickets created for Bitfinex.

By the Numbers

After going live on Bitfinex, the transaction volume quickly became so massive that the Bitfinex servers briefly went down. “Moments after the IOTA launch,” Brandon shared,  “we were all hands on deck to load balance and ensure IOTA trading was back online and operating as expected.” What kind of volume? Within the first three hours of trading, 4.44 Million Mega IOTA were traded with the IOT/USD pair, an amount that increased by the second. The IOT/BTC trades showed even greater activity, showing 11.67 Million Mega IOTA traded in

The same period.

The first two hours of IOTA trading was more than double the USD volume and ten times greater than the BTC volume of the last token we released, Ripple, over the course of its full trading day.

All of which sees IOT slotting itself straight into the top 10 cryptocurrencies by market cap. At the time of publishing, the total value of IOT tokens stands above $1.5 billion, peaking beyond the likes of Dash and Monero.

Bitfinex Lists IOT

The team at Bitfinex have been following IOTA’s development closely for the past year. Thanks to the innovative nature of their platform, and the “amount of effort the founders have put into IOTA in just a year’s time relative to the polished product we see today is atypical for something in such an early period of its life,” the IOTA token was an obvious candidate for inclusion on Bitfinex. The relationship is unique for Bitfinex as well, as this is the first token Bitfinex is hosting not listed on any other exchange. In discussing the success of IOT on Bitfinex, David said “I want to congratulate every IOTA member on this success. Now we welcome thousands upon thousands of new people who learn about and get interested in IOTA through this event with open arms. However, we are still considering this the very early days, and are squarely focused on the long term execution and vision of the IOTA project.”

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor
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Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member