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“Inbound Marketing” is a term that I have seen to describe the untraditional ways to market and find leads and customers for your products and services. It is the practice of having qualified leads find you and your company through the use of creating content, search engine optimization (SEO), and social networks, rather than utilizing traditional “outbound marketing” such as advertisements, cold calls and tradeshows. The old form of marketing was played as a numbers game. If your company could get in front of a large enough number of people, an acceptable minority amount of those people could be warmed up (via your marketing message) to the point where they would sample, grow interested, and eventually purchase.

Even pre-recession this was an inefficient and expensive proposition, and many people would be interrupted by the message who may have no interest in your offering. This was a large waste of marketing dollars and team members’ efforts. These external campaigns also had an incredibly short time in the market to create impact.

Benefits of Inbound Marketing
In these tight times, marketers looking for greater efficiency (not difficult to achieve) and affordable ways to acquire customers have turned to Inbound Marketing utilizing blogs, search engine optimization, and social media. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers “publish their way in” in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to “buy their way in”.

The key benefit of inbound marketing techniques is that these methods pre-qualify potential customers before they arrive at your digital site, so there is a likelihood that your brand message will be delivered to welcoming vs. annoyed people.

Using low cost tools to pre-screen only those interested in continuing an interaction with you greatly saves time and money compared to the old outbound marketing strategies.

Content to drive interest
In addition to blogging, there are many other forms of great content to create that will bring interested visitors. White papers or other materials for download, manifestos, creating or posting video how-to’s or roundtable discussions, webinars, and developing micro-sites will all attract leads that are interested in your offerings and are eager to engage in a conversation with you about your organization.

SEO and Social Media to drive discovery and authority
Search engine marketing includes applying the tactics of search engine optimization and link development. When your site is optimized for search engines, it is rich in keyword text and its URL structure and site navigation schemes are user-friendly to automated search programs. Your optimized site also has many links to third-party sites that are relevant and authoritative to search engines, creating a strong “findability” ranking.

The last element for successful inbound marketing uses social media to help find experts, influencers and fans of your product, industry or topic, and building an ongoing (and cross-linked) relationship by participating in the discussions about your company, your industry or current trends or topics. You can build a strong offsite community around your company and products by commenting on relevant blogs, authoring guest posts, and by using social media for product development insights, for seeding your products in advance of launch, and for listening to and responding to customer feedback and product complaints.

All of these inbound methods pre-qualify the customer who discovers your company’s message, and brings these “want to be found” customers to your site, starting the ongoing relationship on the right foot.

The long-term build strategy
By sticking with these Inbound Marketing strategies, you’ll continually bring in new customers and grow in your search ranking. However, it won’t happen overnight. While Inbound Marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing, it does take an ample commitment and patience. It takes constant work. You may not be on page one on the search engines or have oversubscribed webinars, but by making a commitment to inbound marketing long term, you will begin to see results.

My friend and colleague, Robert Gonsalves built the award-winning, online success of Disney Online and Warner Bros. Online, and now consults to CEOs in all industries to grow new and existing brands online, and to build new revenue streams and bottom line profits on all interactive platforms. Check out his site at www.robertgonsalves.com.

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