Inbound Marketing
Back in the day, marketing was defined almost entirely by “outbound” activities or tactics. Direct marketing to acquire leads, public relations to push out the story, print advertising to push your brand in front of your targets.
I have written and blogged on the changes that are taking place in the marketing discipline for the several years. In a nutshell, changes in technology have wrought changes to the structure of the media which have transferred power — irreversibly — to consumers or buyers.
Information about products and services once moved in a linear fashion and through a small number of powerful media masters from vendors to buyers. Today, buyers have complete control over information about vendors, and their products and services. The web, search engines, and other communication tools have driven all of this change.
As a result, buyers or users have access to all the information they need to make decisions about products and services from their desktop or laptop or mobile phone. They can use search tools, get reviews and opinions on community web sites, and consult their trusted peers for information without ever attending a trade show, reading a print advertisement, or responding to a piece of direct mail or spam.
The challege for marketing, then, is to ensure that when buyers or potential buyers search for solutions to a problem which your product or service addresses — you’d better be damned sure they find you. The tools and techniques for “findability” are very different from those of “outbound” or “interruption-based” marketing. They involved vigorous search engine optimizations strategies and pay-per-click programs; an approach to publishing via your web site, blogs, and on social networks that ensures your content performs well within the major search environments, and programs to establish and monitor your brand’s reputation which involve participation in online communities not governed by a small number of media masters, but by dozens or hundreds of user-driven and generated initiatives.
- Do you have a clear definition of where you brand needs to establish presence online?
- Have you defined the key 100 influencers in your target market (including competitors)?
- How do you assert a position of authority in your target market?
- Are you actively monitoring your brand’s reputation as a key aspect of your marketing strategy?
Contact Elastic Brands if you would like to develop a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy for your firm.
[wpcf]
