Monday, April 23, 2012

The Inbound Marketing Process - Part 1

If you have a business website and you are searching for way to get traffic, you may have heard the term "Inbound Marketing" over recent months.  It's a term which is intended to categorize a style of marketing that's basically intended to create "pull"  versus "push" marketing.  The opposite of "inbound marketing" would be - take a guess... right - "outbound marketing".

Both terms end in the word "marketing" which might lead you to believe there have to be some similarities.  Again, you would be right.  Both are intended to get you more customers. Some techniques are similar.  The big differences are in the overall philosophy and the tools used to execute a marketing campaign.  We explain the differences in our short PDF:


In simple terms, "outbound marketing" is about going wide and using broadcast type methods like direct mail, radio & TV spots, billboards, banners, and similar and hope that someone who might be a customer or client sees one and is motivated on the spot to contact you.   It's the old fashioned way of doing things.  Not that it can't work - there are still plenty of commercials on TV.  The question is will it work for your business and can you afford it?  Or if you've used it in the past, is it as effective as it used to be?

"Inbound marketing" is take a different approach to start. There are 3 major elements to the inbound marketing approach.  We'll talk about the first one here and other in future posts.

At it's heart, the inbound approach which is almost exclusively web/internet based, relies on the only reasons in the world people even use the internet.

There are really only two reasons to use the internet, the only 2 real "needs" being met:

1) solve a problem / get an answer

or

2) to be entertained / find entertainment  ("finding" is also solving a problem)

That's it. Think about it. Everything you do on the web can be be clumped into one (or both of those broad reasons for using the web.    Inbound marketing leverages that concept by assuming if a person is trying to do either they will search for things that help solve a problem or be entertained.

The first goal of inbound marketing is quite simple to "Get Found".  It's to create a magnet using content that draws potential customers to you at the time they are searching for something.  This is the right time to have them find you.  When your product or service is needed.  Once you've been found, then you can engage and hopefully begin to start talking with or even begin to build a relationship (acquaintance?) with the potential customers.

More in the next post - or get the details here right now:


Let's Grow!