How 2 Marketing Advice

What is Inbound Marketing

Posted on December 3, 2009 by Lisa Isbell

Have you heard of Inbound Marketing?  You may have heard of it and not even realize it.  Inbound marketing is the label for the overall strategy toward drawing customers to you rather than the old method offered by traditional forms of marketing like print, tv and radio.

Now that Social Media is becoming a point of focus for more and more businesses as they look for new and innovative ways to market goods and services, many are finding it difficult to figure out the specifics in using Web 2.0 options toward manipulating the bottom line.

Inbound marketing is the overall strategy that weaves the various marketing resources found online and in the social media realm together toward a common goal.  The common goal is establishing the business as a market leader for the goods or services offered.  These resources include a website, email marketing, blogging, Social Media, SEO techniques and linkbuilding, and virtually anything else that can contribute to building market leadership for a business.

How do we define a market leader?  In the simplest form you can think of it this way, the consumer has a problem that needs solved.  Businesses want to be asked to solve the problem and are spending vast amounts of money to get the attention of the consumer for the opportunity to solve the problem.  A market leader is someone who will be sought out to solve the problem.  Attracting business by establishing trust, knowledge, dependability, all with offerings made freely available in the Social Media arena and with various other forms of online content.  Inbound marketing can be conducted entirely online but as the world transitions from traditional marketing methods, mixing a little of the traditional advertising methods as an ingredient to point to online resources will also be part of the formula.

Is your business doing a good job of establishing market leadership?  Do you have a clear understanding of how to build inbound marketing framework to gain market leadership?

Here are some steps to start building a solid inbound marketing plan.

• First do a little market research to select a set of keywords that will be included in all your online materials.  There are many tools online for helping with this task.  I like the Google keyword tool.  Identify the most valuable keywords that apply to your business as part of your target keyword set and also keep a longer list that you can use to round out materials to paint a bigger picture.
• Develop plenty of online content and resources specific to your area of expertise to be housed on the company website and blog.  You will want to incorporate the keywords you’ve identified earlier into as much of this content as possible.  SEO (search engine optimization) techniques are part of the recipe but don’t worry if this isn’t an area you are knowledgeable about, give yourself time to learn.
• Build the framework.  At a minimum you should consider email, website, blog, Facebook fanpage, Twitter account and perhaps a LinkedIn presence for your foundation. Work with what you have until you can create them all.
• Blog to provide content and advice often, 1-3 times per week is recommended but you may not be able to manage this at first – just make sure you’re moving forward toward this goal.  Blog posts should contain the relevant keywords.  This is also an opportunity to use some of the additional keywords you uncovered that are outside your targeted set.  Blog articles should point to content resources your company offers online.
• Constantly develop content.  Always be thinking in the direction of what is most helpful to your audience.  Be a resource, trusted friend and guide.  Include video, slide presentations, webinars, white papers, downloadable guides, ebooks, photos, podcasts – anything you can develop that will help your audience.
• Engage others by commenting in the social arena within your market.  Commenting on other blogs often gives the opportunity to link to your own content.  Comments should be thought provoking, relevant and engaging – not just a place to drop a link or shout BUY ME.  Remember you want to demonstrate knowledge and expertise – add value and show passion for what you do.
• This is where the social media enters the picture.  Create accounts with as many platforms as you can manage and build content using the targeted set of keywords.  There are many tools and services emerging to help with this task.  If your budget allows outsourcing, consider exploring these tools.
• Once a framework is in place, constantly adding content and more resources will be the primary goal.  A regular routine should be put in place to cycle the steps above and develop more and more content …the wider the variety the better.

Remember, this list is a starting place. It will now be a lifelong effort of building and sharing content to engage the target demographic toward establishing market leadership.  As your business grows you will find you cannot manage all of these tasks.  Outsourcing will now enter the picture.  There are a multitude of tools and services suitable to any budget to help you grow this process.  Depending on the size of the company, different resources will be needed.

This task seems overwhelming when you’re getting started so concentrate on the individual steps and just start building according to your ability and resources.  Outsource according to what your budget will bear and stay committed.  You will be amazed at what a couple of months of devoted effort will produce.

Some will struggle with this more than others and outsourcing will be the only route.  Having a firm understanding of the process is important since you need this information to make good choices in selecting the services.  Being able to determine which step is needed and when will be paramount in controlling the budget and getting good return on investment.  Choose carefully.

Inbound marketing is truly the missing link to using the Internet and Social Media to build your business.  Learn the concept well and you will prosper!