Q: What is Inbound Marketing?
A: Inbound Marketing uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Blogging, Social Media, Landing Pages and Analytics to improve your Lead Generation.
Q: How is Inbound Marketing different than the marketing I currently do?
A: Marketing is still about controlling what people say and think about your company and the solutions you provide to solve their problems or purchase decisions; more commonly called controlling and promoting “Word Of Mouth.” For many years it has been all about pushing your message out to the consumer through various media like print, radio, television, direct mail. That is called Traditional or Outbound Marketing. Still a valid way of doing business, but it is getting more and more expensive to conduct a traditional marketing campaign and the results are not as good as they once were.
The consumer is tuning out; after all each one of us is being bombarded through traditional channels with more than 2,000 advertising messages every day. The consumer is taking steps to block the messages and control how they receive your message.
Q: Why should I add Inbound Marketing to my overall marketing strategy?
A: The consumer has changed how they solve business problems or make buying decisions. This is true in both the B2C and B2B world. The use of social media has certainly caused a dramatic shift in how consumer gather information and interact with companies today. Gone is the golden age of Mass Media when television, radio, and print were the major tools to deliver messages in a One-to-Many monologue way. Now, you need to engage the consumer in Many-to-Many dialogues.
But Social Media is only one piece of the puzzle in Inbound Marketing. The consumer is using the Internet to make buying decisions. Part of that process is making sure your web site gets found. SEO is key to having your web site show up in organic search results.
SEO best practices include understanding your prospect/buyer, what tools they use, and what keywords they use in searches. SEO also employs utilizing an analytical tool to gather information on your web site visitors and refining your marketing messages accordingly.
Q: What’s Digital Marketing?
A: Digital marketing is a new tool in the marketing arsenal used by businesses to attract prospects to their website. It’s any targeted, measurable, and interactive marketing of products or services using digital technologies to reach and convert leads into customers. The key objective is to promote brands, build preference and increase sales through various techniques.
- Competitive research
- Keyword research
- Optimization of website for organic search results (On-Page SEO)
- Optimization of social media important to your business (Off-Page SEO)
- Management your business’ digital footprint (Off-Page SEO)
- Email Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing – Pay Per Click advertising
Q: Do I still need a web site?
A: YES. The need for a web site is even more important today.
Web 1.0 was getting a web site on the Internet and that was it. Tell a few people and putting your web site domain on ads was enough. Many companies never changed their web site once it was up.
Today your web site is the Hub for your inbound marketing program. Links from high value web sites back to your site, use of keywords in descriptions and analyzing where your web site’s visitors are coming from is key to improving your web site rankings and increasing the opportunities to get higher rankings on organic search results.
Bottom line, your web site in today’s Web 2.0 age is as important and perhaps more so today than even before. You can no longer, however, put up a web site and not tweak and enhance it, adjusting the to ever changing dynamics in the marketplace. Web 2.5 or perhaps Web 3.0 is taking this to the next level through “publishing” via posts and activity on your part or that of your business.
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