Inbound Marketing

Getting found using Google, Social Media, and Blogs

by Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah

 

If you have more money than brains, you should focus on outbound marketing. If you have more brains than money, you should focus on inbound marketing by reading this book. (Guy Kawasaki)

Inbound Marketing does a great job of tying together the wide range of new marketing tools that are available, and creates a new paradigm by differentiating between “outbound marketing” -

shooting/shouting out your message and trying to interrupt people who are not interested in your product, vs. using the internet to get in front of people who are interested in finding your product.

 

The big picture here is to turn your website into a marketing hub, bringing in interested customers, signing them up to emails, and otherwise keeping them engaged until they become a customer. Your site should be a source of information, not a glorified brochure or sales piece. Make sure you clearly define your value proposition.

In addition, it is important to focus on what is happening off your website – on blogs, facebook, message boards, etc. Create communities for people to connect around your product.

Inbound Marketing also includes a great 360 and key advice on venturing into Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.

Key Advice:

• Create remarkable content for your website, and for publication further afield, for example, blogs and white papers that will be really interesting to your potential customers.

  Blogs are very important in bringing in traffic, helping search engine rankings, and boosting you and your company's profile in your industry. Comment on other related blogs, and include and RSS feed. Invite others to write on your blog.

• There are basic chapters on SEO and PPC. IMO – the power of PPC is given short shrift.

• Focus on converting visitors and prospect into leads, and leads into customers through great calls to action and specialized landing pages. Test Landing Pages for ROI and stickiness. Nurture your leads until it is time for them to buy.