We all underestimate the flexibility of the market.
And by flexibility we mean how unpredictable the market could rise and fall. Take the Dow for example:
From an all-time high of 14,000, it sank down below 9,000. The United States government found themselves spending over $700 billion just to buy unprecedented stakes from the banks. This would include industries such as the ones focused on technology to bleed jobs. However, this is not the point of the article, rather, let's focus on the silver lining. The silver lining caused by the Internet. The World Wide Web, more than eight years ago, started to put pressure on businesses everywhere to make changes and adapt from the traditional way of doing business into the digital age. But as these changes took place, it also created a foundation for a new age – the age of Internet growth. It was in 2001 that this happened, when businesses began to shift their marketing strategies to focus on search engine advertising. Many found it effective because it was:
- Measurable
- More specific in its targeting
- More appealing to marketers that do not have luxurious budgets
But that doesn’t mean the Internet will stay this way. Currently, we are experiencing a new wave of marketing strategies including a shift from paid advertising to content optimization and social media marketing in order to gain organic search results. Welcome to the era of inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing Defined
What is inbound marketing? To simply put it, inbound marketing focuses on the ways and means to make customers find you instead of the other way around. To recall, traditional marketing’s main focus is to find customers for your company.
Traditional marketing makes use of advertising techniques that are often poorly targeted and may interrupt people from their daily lives. Print and television advertising, junk mail, and trade shows are some of the most common examples for these. However, as technology continues to develop these techniques are becoming useless as users are beginning to use apps and technology to block these ads using spam filters.
Here is a video that explains it all!
Why Inbound Marketing?
It is because of these factors that marketers came up with inbound marketing. Here, marketers and advertisers create videos and content that will attract people on what their target market wants to see rather than bombarding them with pop-ups that can interrupt their activities.
Instead of creating ads, they make blogs for clients to subscribe to or create helpful content and tools so that their potential client will seek them for more information. What’s also attractive about inbound marketing is that it costs less than traditional advertising. All you have to do is create relevant content and make sure it is out there to be found by your target market.
The Secrets Behind Inbound Marketing Success
There are three key components in order to create a successful inbound marketing campaign: Content, SEO, and Social Media.
- Content
Content creation is the heart of any inbound marketing campaign. Your content is what serves as the magnet for people to look for you as it contains the information or tools that people are looking for.
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
In tandem with your content comes SEO. This helps you be visible to your customers as well as to search engines such as Google and Yahoo by building and improving your ranking in these engines.
- Social Media
A recent player, social media has become an essential tool in content promotion for inbound marketing. Like SEO, social media helps you become more visible to your target market. It also helps to create a steady following and to serve as an adjunct magnet for potential customers.
Still no sure how to get started with inbound marketing? Check this short video out, Inbound Marketing Explained and reach out to us if you have any questions.
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Are you currently running an inbound marketing campaign? Let us know below in the contents what has worked and hasn't worked for you!
