These days every agency is an ‘inbound marketing’ agency. In the digital strategy world, ‘inbound’ is most certainly the flavour of the month and for once, because the BS hype and lingo are justified by the efficacy of the product they describe, there is really nothing wrong with this. So what is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is actually not a new term, but a longstanding category of marketing. Rather than engage in direct mailings, traditional advertising campaigns, cold calling and telemarketing, flyering or media advertising (whether online or offline — TV/radio/magazine/newspaper) — so called outbound strategies — inbound marketing focuses on creating material that attracts attention on its own merit.
Inbound marketing may therefore take many shapes:
- Viral/Content Marketing: crafting interesting or useful content able to be shared and trend.
- Search Engine Optimisation: ensuring that the content produced ranks well across major search engines and attracts ‘organic’ interest over time from keywords relevant to the content, as interest piques around the topic at any given future time.
- Social Influence: syndicating content across the right social channels and networks to gain organic traction
Rather than actively pursue specific leads, inbound marketers produce content designed to draw leads in, and market that content in such a way that it does most of the work.
Good content in an inbound marketing campaign is a huge value-add to potential consumers of your brand, and achieves two things.
- It serves as a great way of building rapport (exposing the process behind the product).
- It establishes your credibility, allowing you to demonstrate knowledge and craftsmanship.
Done correctly inbound marketing is the ultimate soft-sell, and company blogs like Soho Insights, or our StrategyUni free video training series are prime examples of lead-generating inbound marketing in action.
