What Is Inbound Marketing?
When I first started working in digital marketing, some customers would come to me, saying all they needed was a “brochure site,” or “virtual business card.”
I think they were trying to save my work (or more likely, save themselves money) but every single one of them that I was able to persuade otherwise took my advice to the bank.
Brochure sites are a dead-end street. Today’s customer expects to get actual value from whatever it is you put on the web. They want to use it to learn, schedule, book and transact with you.
This is done through inbound marketing.
Inbound marketing is a way of earning your way into a customer’s awareness, instead of invading your way into their awareness through paid advertisements. Traditional marketing relied on things that were an interruption to the prospective client: advertisements, email lists, cold-calling, billboard advertisements, and direct mail. Modern inbound marketing uses magnetism to earn customer attention via:
- Organic search traffic
- Content marketing (a.k.a. providing the information you know they’re seeking)
- Social media marketing (or, being on their social media platform of choice
- Search engine optimization (also known as SEO. This is when they run a search and your product…
