Inbound Marketing Thoughts and Curation Blog - All Articles

Sales enablement , Sales Transformation , eCommerce

Shopify vs WooCommerce. Which ecommerce platform is best?

By Sonia Slattery

Lately we’ve been working with a number of clients to incorporate ecommerce into their sales mix, and we’re frequently asked to advise on platform selection. Market leaders WooCommerce and Shopify ...

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all, ["gdpr compliance", "privacy act"]

5 things you need to know about the Privacy Act changes

On the 1st of December 2020, the new Privacy Act came into effect. In this short blog, we cut to the chase and summarise the key changes to the Act you need to know about. Grab a ‘cuppa’ and we’ll be ...

all, ["gdpr compliance", "privacy act"]

The past, present and future of the Privacy Act 2020

In NZ we’re lucky to have two things: The Privacy Act which protects the use of our personal information; and Keith Norris, Regulatory Consultant to the NZ Marketing Association. We interviewed Keith ...

all, ["how to...", "website transformation", "marketing transformation"]

How to Do a HubSpot Marketing Hub Audit

If your business has been using HubSpot Marketing Hub for some time, chances are, your portal could be in need of a clean up. Perhaps you’ve had staff changes, there’s been an increase of users on ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

The State of Content Marketing in New Zealand

Marketing trends ebb and flow with technology, providing new and unique ways for companies to target audiences. From newspaper print ads to today's digital media channels, the ways in which ...

all, ["website transformation", "marketing transformation", "ecommerce"]

How ecommerce supplements traditional B2B sales channels

ecommerce is booming and it’s not only consumers who are flocking online to book, order, subscribe and buy… business customers are ready and willing to purchase online too. In this blog we look at ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "lead generation"]

Social Media is content marketing's secret weapon

A few years ago, when you thought about social media, lead generation was probably the last thing that sprung to mind. Fast forward to today, and social media is a literal 'lead-hunting ground' for ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "lead generation"]

What content formats work best for lead generation?

Video? eBook? Infographic? White paper? Blog? Webinar? With so many content types and channels available, scenes like these are common in marketing teams around the country! It can be a challenge to ...

all, ["inbound marketing", "sales enablement"]

How to keep your sales pipeline healthy in a COVID world

We're already hearing some great stories of reinvention and recovery as businesses adapt to our new world. But peppered amongst these stories are some concerning scenarios. In this blog we share tips ...

all, ["digital marketing", "technology", "hubspot product updates"]

HubSpot’s Adapt 2020 Survey: Key Insights for Kiwi businesses

2020 has certainly had more than its fair share of ups and downs. All the turmoil has created much distress and disruption for Kiwi organisations trying to survive in these uncertain times. One ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "how to..."]

How to create marketing personas

Here at Engaging Partners we’ve used personas for many years to help us design inbound marketing campaigns that resonate with our clients' target audiences. Helping our clients understand and ...

all, ["featured", "sales enablement"]

Sales enablement: a new approach for marketing and sales teams

'Sales Enablement' is being touted as the key to resolving long-held frustrations between sales and marketing departments in large organisations. So what is sales enablement and how can this approach ...

all, ["content marketing", "digital marketing", "technology", "hubspot product updates"]

The new HubSpot CMS Hub: features we love

someon HubSpot’s website CMS has been one of the fastest developing offerings in the HubSpot marketing technology stack for some time. And now the CMS product has taken a huge step forward into the ...

all, ["digital marketing", "technology"]

Covid-pivot #2: How to set up an online shop in a week

Since our last blog, New Zealand and the world is reeling from Covid-19 and businesses are being forced to shut their bricks-and-mortar doors. So our 'pivot' theme has extended to the basics - what ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

Coronavirus: How to pivot your marketing and events strategy

Coronavirus is causing businesses world-wide to rethink their daily activities - including marketing. If your business has relied on common marketing approaches such as conferences, trade shows, ...

all, ["content marketing", "marketing automation", "digital marketing"]

Move over A/B testing. Adaptive testing is here.

A/B testing has helped marketers understand behaviour and fine tune website pages for many years. But while you've been waiting for a statistically significant data result to build up, HubSpot has ...

all, ["customer experience"]

Who's responsible for CX in your organisation?

Get this - today 89% of companies compete on the basis of customer experience. Not price, not even product - but customer experience. This eye-opening statistic from Gartner set the scene for our ...

all, ["content marketing", "lead generation"]

Landing Page Optimisation: Are your leads landing?

Driving traffic is a tricky business. With so many options, ranging from social media to organic web searches, sending your customers in the right direction can be a crucial part of lead ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

Wondering Why Your Inbound Marketing Isn’t Converting?

Inbound marketing is becoming a vital part of any successful marketing strategy, but proving the ROI of these strategies is still a major challenge. One crucial way of proving inbound marketing’s ...

all, ["technology", "hubspot product updates"]

2020: Is your Marketing software up to the job?

Welcome to a new year...and a new decade! Hopefully, you’ve come back well-rested and ready to hit the ground running - especially if you have big business goals for the year. In order to achieve ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

Best HubSpot Agencies NZ

Here at Engaging Partners, we’re talking about HubSpot with marketers and business owners from a broad range of company types and industries, all the time. So it’s not surprising that that we often ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

How to know the best platform to share my content

As an in-house marketing manager, you've got a tough job to do. You're an 'Inspector Gadget' responsible for generating leads and organising everything from social media posts to CRM implementations, ...

all, ["customer experience"]

Ten tips for creating a better customer experience

We all know how important it is to turn every possible lead into a customer – it’s at the heart of every business. But the reality is that after the sale, with this focus it’s easy for your customers ...

all, ["sales enablement", "technology"]

Three essential requirements for sales enablement technology

Sales enablement is just that. Enabling your sales (and marketing) teams to, well, sell! These days technology is our best friend and there are many ways to use software to assist your sales and ...

all, ["marketing automation", "sales enablement", "how to..."]

How to better qualify leads: 5 tactics to delight Sales

If lead quality is causing disputes across your office, it's time to find some quick wins in this department! Fortunately with the right tools, collaboration and processes, this problem is easily ...

all, ["sales enablement", "how to..."]

How to use HubSpot snippets in sales emails to save time

If you're in sales - this one's for you. You want to ensure you treat each potential customer as an individual, but there are lots of things you do repeatedly right? Look no further. HubSpot Sales ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

How GDPR will impact your NZ Marketing

If you find yourself feeling lost hearing this acronym thrown around the office, you’re not alone. GDPR is the latest buzzword making waves across the global marketing community - but what exactly is ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

4 Key Metrics of Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

It can be hard juggling the day to day demands of business while still paying close attention to your inbound marketing strategy - especially when it comes to analysing your ROI. If you feel this ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Video in Email - Changing The Game in 2017

We’ve talked before on our blog about how the rise in video technology should be a key focus in your 2017 marketing strategy. And now with Apple enabling video playback within Apple Mail, it’s more ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

The Modern Marketer’s Guide to Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation is much more than just a trendy buzzword — it’s here to stay and is destined to become the status quo for any successful inbound marketing strategy. We’re so impressed with the ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

How Marketing Automation Can Help Your Business

Recently, Inbound legends Hubspot surveyed a bevy of marketers to reveal their biggest marketing challenges. Check out the top three across respondents below: Traffic and Leads - Quality vs Quantity ...

all, ["inbound marketing", "marketing automation", "how to..."]

How to Capture and Nurture leads at Events with Marketing Automation

Many of our clients use events and conferences to promote their products and services locally and internationally. Did you know you can leverage your HubSpot platform (or other marketing automation ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "marketing automation", "how to..."]

Is it time to bring out your nurturing side?

It’s month end. You’re looking at your GA results. Your website stats are looking healthy – but for some reason, they just don’t seem to be converting into leads and sales for your business. If this ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

5 tips to select the right Marketing Automation platform

Marketing Automation has been one of the hottest marketing topics of 2017. And if you’re a marketer still juggling multiple digital platforms, desperate databases and inefficient publishing demands, ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

What Marketing tasks can you automate?

In many of our recent blogs we’ve discussed the benefits of Marketing Automation and how to choose a marketing automation platform. But let’s back up the truck a little... all this is great stuff, ...

all, ["content marketing", "digital marketing", "how to..."]

Here's how to rank for your first snippet

Just like any other marketer, you have probably dreamt about your site ranking #1 in Google search results. However, after investing sweat, tears and money in SEO optimisation, you might have ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

How much should you spend on marketing if you want to grow?

Marketing is crucial for your business' growth, so it's important you understand how it's going to fit into your overall business strategy. Nowadays, most companies have some sort of marketing ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

Give Your Customers Something They Can't Ignore

Without letting potential customers know what you can do, who will be interested in your company? The offers you provide to web users can make a huge difference; the more engaged customers you have, ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Social Marketing 101: Using Facebook & LinkedIn

Social media is a driving force in marketing today, but it wasn't always. Social media's early history was all about connecting with friends; where the idea of "sharing" was limited to a comment on a ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

How to Write Calls-To-Action (CTAs) that Work

Your web presence is strong, your traffic is consistent, but your leads still aren't converting. What’s going wrong? Although it's compelling to spend days on end analysing every facet of your ...

all, ["content marketing", "digital marketing"]

Are Email Newsletters Killing Your Open Rates?

E-newsletters are one of the most common types of emails to send, but they are actually some of the hardest to do right. Their traditionally low open rates and even lower response rates have many ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

5 Content Marketing Tools You Should Be Using

Content is an important part of your marketing strategy. Driving what your customers see on your website, learn about you via your blog, and form first impressions and ongoing opinions, what you ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing: Transform Your Strategy

The face of marketing has changed. As people increasingly turn to the internet to buy, sell and learn more about brands and their products or services, intrusive ‘outbound’ marketing strategies are ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Are you ready for Google’s Mobile-First Indexing?

Good news. If you’ve invested time and energy into your mobile site lately, then you should be in good shape for the latest change that’s about to hit us from Google. Google’s mobile-first indexing ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Chatterbot! Benefits of Using Business Chatbots

We’ve landed robots on mars, sent them into the unfathomable depths of the ocean, heck, they even have them scuttling around cleaning swimming pools while you laze poolside with a pina colada. Humans ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Where's Content Marketing Taking Us in 2016?

A new year brings with it many things. From resolutions to change for the better to a fresh, blank slate for your business and marketing objectives, 2016 brings with it a new series of content ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "digital marketing"]

6 Social Media Tactics to Build Your Brand

You’re bound to have heard numerous strategies and theories about how to build a social media following for brands - content is king, it’s a two-way conversation, don’t be salesy, etc. These ...

all, ["content marketing", "digital marketing"]

Using Email for Content Marketing Success

Email is back – and sexier than ever. Always a solid performer, a well executed email marketing programme has, in recent years, been pushed aside by its 'cooler' social media counterparts. But with ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "digital marketing", "how to..."]

How to Hire a Content Marketing Agency

It’s clear — smart companies are adapting in a world gone digital and shifting their marketing spend to where buyers are doing their research and discovery — online. It’s just common sense when 79% ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "digital marketing"]

How Content Marketing complements Native Advertising

Talk to people in the advertising industry and you can get wildly different views on what native advertising is. For some it’s content partnerships between brands and publishers, for others it's paid ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

3 Tips to Build a Business Case for Content Marketing

Globally Content Marketing is emerging as the go-to strategy for lead generation and it’s now gaining popularity with New Zealand marketers. So if your business is new to Content Marketing, how do ...

all, ["content marketing", "lead generation"]

How Content Powers Word of Mouth

Communication is the root of human existence. Much of how early civilisation functioned was wholly dependent on word of mouth and information passed in oral form and folklore. As a people, we are ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "how to..."]

How to Double Lead Generation by Optimising Your Blog

How Can a Blog be Used in Lead Generation? The growing popularity of content marketing has made marketing blogs one of the most powerful tools in the digital marketing toolbox - the fact is, ...

all, ["marketing automation", "digital marketing"]

Latest Marketing Automation Research: Top 10 Takeaways

In the last 6 weeks, two of the biggest names in marketing automation have published reports on the state of Content Marketing in this part of the world. First came the State of Digital Marketing ...

all, ["content marketing", "digital marketing"]

3 SEO Techniques to Optimise Your Blog

Your content plays a huge role in your business' success, helping you expand your reach and enhancing your visibility on the Internet. Many companies employ various optimisation techniques, but with ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Co-Marketing: What Is It & How Do You Do It?

In general, marketing is an individual sport. As an endeavor that helps grow companies, an effective approach must be sustainable, industry-specific, and carefully crafted, and sharing yours with ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Top 5 Content Marketing Tips

Over the year we've looked at a lot of techniques to improve sales lead generation and tested many tactics in campaigns we've run. Here are our top 5 Content Marketing tips... Focus on Creating an ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Why is my content not working?

If you’re asking yourself this question, chances are you’ve experienced a ‘hands in the head moment’, staring at the poor analytics of a piece of content you’ve put your heart and soul into (and may ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

Content Marketing: What is it? How does it work?

Search for the ‘top marketing trends of 2014’ in Google you’ll find Content Marketing at the top of almost all the lists. And for good reason. Over the last few years, smart marketers have been ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

Is Your Digital Marketing Platform Today-Proof?

There's a lot of talk right now about making sure your digital marketing platform is 'future proof'. We see a lot of New Zealand companies agonising over tenders & capital funding submissions to ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Where's the Digital Strategy in Business?

A number of advertising industry leaders in New Zealand have questioned whether a digital strategy is valid given ‘digital is just another channel in the media mix’. However, the industry leaders I ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

The New Digital Marketing Divide

Three years ago Gartner predicted that by 2017, marketing departments would spend more on ‘technology’ than IT departments. By many accounts this prediction is set to come true. Today over 50 ...

all, ["marketing automation", "digital marketing"]

Making Sense of Digital Marketing Complexity

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

The Importance of Content Marketing Strategies

In pursuing the thinking that ‘Content is King’ you could end up wearing The Emperor’s New Clothes. For decades, brands have been persuaded by advertising and SEO experts that content is the ...

all, ["content marketing", "events"]

Top 5 Takeaways from our WLG & AKL #KiwiHUG Events

Over the last few weeks the Done by Friday team, with some help from our friends at Concentrate and HubSpot, have hosted HubSpot User Group (HUG) events in Auckland and our very first Wellywood event ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

Using Facebook lead ads for your business

As a business owner, chances are you’re interested in effective ways to get quality leads at a low cost. You’ve probably also heard of Facebook lead ads, a growing way of generating leads that could ...

all, ["digital marketing"]

4 Key Ways To Optimise for Voice Search

It all started with Siri. When Siri first came on the market, the technology was a novelty. Now with Cortana, Amazon Echo, Google Home and a whole lot of other technologies to choose from, it’s ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

Best Practice SEO for Effective Inbound Marketing

Everyone wants their website content at the top of the Google search results page, and with good reason when the first result, on average, captures 33% of search traffic. As a savvy marketer, you ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Why and How-to Do a Website Content Audit

Well-written SEO content drives your website traffic and increases sales, but how do you know you’re getting the most out of the content at the heart of your inbound marketing strategy? A simple ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

How to Nail Video Content

If the past has taught us anything, it’s that video content should not be underestimated when it comes to inbound marketing. Even though video was once considered a costly endeavour, research ...

all, ["case studies", "inbound marketing", "marketing automation", "agency news"]

How Inbound Marketing Helped Kiwi Wealth Exceed Targets by 1,154%

When Kiwi Wealth (formerly GMI) approached Engaging Partners to help implement a content marketing strategy for its private wealth division, it was the beginning of a new era of marketing for the ...

all, ["sales enablement"]

What on earth is Sales Enablement?

Sales and marketing are meant to work together to reach the achieve the same goals but they usually don't. This means that neither can reach their potential - sales won't get the quality leads they ...

all, ["content marketing", "case studies", "agency news"]

How a new Motorhome Selector Tool shifted gears for Wilderness

When Wilderness Motorhomes reached out to Inbound Marketing agency, Engaging Partners, to work out how to leverage their investment in marketing automation (HubSpot) it lead to a journey of discovery ...

all, ["case studies", "inbound marketing", "lead generation"]

How Inbound Marketing helped FRAMECAD exceed targets by 1,314%

FRAMECAD has been selling innovative construction solutions to the world for 30 years. But with a tough and increasingly diverse global market, they turned to Inbound Marketing and local agency, ...

all, ["technology", "agency news"]

Engaging Partners #1 in the world for new advanced HubSpot cert

After a gruelling pitch and judging process, Engaging Partners was awarded the inaugural HubSpot Advanced Implementation Certification. Not only are we one of only 13 agencies globally to be awarded ...

all, ["digital marketing", "technology"]

5 lessons we learned from our first live webinar experience

We prepped and practiced... in a perfect world, our live webinar would have gone off without a hitch. Unfortunately, we weren’t so lucky. In this blog, we share what happened and what we learned, ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "marketing automation", "how to..."]

Matchmaking 101: How to find your perfect content marketing agency

'We're experts at digital marketing.' 'We're the best content marketing agency in NZ.' 'We'll guarantee SEO results.' Yep, there are a lot of 'experts' out there. So how do you cut through the hype ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

8 steps to writing brilliant blogs for your business

A quality blog helps your business get found online, builds relationships with prospective customers who are interested in your products and improves your ranking in search engines. The only problem? ...

all, ["content marketing"]

2019 content strategy preview - part 3

It’s the final blog in our three-part series, and it’s time to discuss strategy. We’ve all heard the phrase ‘Content is King’ thrown around for years, but it’s time to start acting like it. You ...

all, ["content marketing"]

2019 content strategy preview - part 2

Now that you know what to dismiss during your next content marketing strategy meeting, it’s time to set some new year’s resolutions — a.k.a. your business goals. Here are six strategies you should ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

2019 content strategy preview - part 1

2018 sure was a roller coaster. Whether you enjoyed the trip or not, you're still here! And with the year coming to a close, it's best to gear up and get ready for what's in store this coming 2019. ...

all, ["content marketing", "how to..."]

How-to: 3 steps to conducting an efficient blog audit

The beginning of a new year is the perfect time to revise your content marketing strategy - and the best place to start is with a full audit of your company blog. After all, your blog posts are ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Six gifts for your savvy Marketing Manager

The festive season is here and while Marketing Managers are pouring over email distribution lists (and checking them twice), what are the hottest gifts you could slip into their Christmas stocking? ...

all, []

November Kiwi HUG re-cap: What is SMarketing?

A big thank you to everyone who came to our last Kiwi HUG of 2018! These events are the ultimate opportunity to meet, grow and share with like-minded Inbound Marketers in Auckland. This event’s theme ...

all, ["marketing automation", "digital marketing"]

What Are APIs & How Do They Work?

Think of APIs as the ‘neutrons’ of the digital world. In very simple terms they allow businesses and people to connect their digital platforms and activities with other existing digital platforms ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "marketing automation", "how to..."]

How to Write for Marketing Automation

Whether you realise it or not, if you’re a marketer using digital platforms today, chances are you're using marketing automation in some shape or form. However, if you’ve ever been a victim of ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing"]

Guide to Blogging: Sustainable content is key

Blogging in 2020 is still a very powerful marketing tool, offering an incredible opportunity for lead generation and conversion. However, like all things digital, the landscape is constantly ...

all, ["events"]

KiwiHUG 20th September 2018: Growth hacking, direct from INBOUND

It's only been a couple months since our last #KiwiHug, but already so much has happened in the industry. We understand it can be hard to keep up with all the latest and greatest, so that's why our ...

all, ["marketing automation", "digital marketing", "technology"]

HubSpot vs. CMS – what can HubSpot do that a CMS can’t?

We have the privilege of meeting many talented marketers who just want to get on with the job of doing Content Marketing. To help you communicate the pros and cons of HubSpot compared to other ...

all, ["content marketing", "inbound marketing", "digital marketing"]

Influencers and the age of authenticity

I’ve always been a little freaked out by the term ‘influencer’ - why are people happy to be influenced? I’ve often found it to be a relatively negative term on its own. Of course, there are good ...

all, ["inbound marketing", "digital marketing", "agency news"]

Engaging Partners: Wins Inbound Growth Story and Website Design awards

Here at Engaging Partners, we like to celebrate our wins - whether it's the ringing of the office's ceremonial bell when content goes live, or sharing our latest updates on our blog. Today, we've ...

all, ["content marketing"]

4 keys to eBook content marketing success

eBooks are one of the most under-rated, yet highest performing content formats available to marketers. They are cost-effective to produce, can be quick to create, and are a low-friction way to engage ...

all, ["agency news"]

Engaging Partners win 5 NZDM awards

What a night! Engaging Partners (formerly DBF) demonstrated leadership in Inbound Marketing yet again with the success of our entries in the 2017 NZDM awards announced last night. Taking out 2 ...

all, ["content marketing"]

Content marketing trends for 2018

By now you’re sure to have noticed just how important content marketing is when it comes to attracting inbound leads and building strong customer relationships. And one of the keys to the success of ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

Key takeaways from Hubspot’s State of Inbound 2017

It’s out again, your go-to marketing and sales report! The Hubspot State of Inbound 2017 is packed with useful insights into the ever-changing world of inbound marketing. State of Inbound 2017lets ...

all, ["marketing automation"]

Marketing Automation off to uni thanks to Done by Friday and Unitec

Engaging Partners and Unitec have joined forces to bring you an Inbound Marketing course that will give you real-life experience using key marketing automation software HubSpot and the latest Inbound ...

all, ["agency news"]

Engaging Partners achieves HubSpot platinum status

We have achieved Platinum status with HubSpot, showing again that Engaging Partners is New Zealand’s leading inbound marketing agency. This status is only given to agencies who have executed inbound ...

all, ["inbound marketing"]

5 Inbound Fundamentals for Marketers

If this is your year to tackle Inbound Marketing, then you've come to the right place. In this article we share our 5 fundamentals of Inbound Marketing - a starting point to get you thinking about ...

all, ["content marketing", "events", "how to..."]

KiwiHUG Event Recap: How to Create Engaging Content

Creating engaging content has always been a major challenge for marketers. And with audience attention spans getting shorter and shorter, it's becoming harder than ever. Earlier this month, we held ...

all, ["content marketing"]

DBF Gold Winners at NZ Direct Marketing Awards 2016

Done By Friday’s impressive Inbound Marketing results for GMI were celebrated at last night’s NZ Direct Marketing Awards 2016. Gaining four coveted gold awards, Done By Friday (DBF) took home a total ...