So this is basically what inbound marketing is all about. It's about letting your prospects find you rather than broadcasting your marketing message to the masses hoping it reaches a prospective customer (as in traditional outbound marketing). So far so good.
Now, how do they find me and why?
I'll publish the right content in the right place at the right time, my marketing will become relevant and helpful to my customers and it will not interrupt. Great intent, right?
I'll create targeted content that answers prospects' and customers' basic questions and needs, then share that content far and wide.
This is good.
I'll use SEO, I'm pretty good at that, is that In-bound Marketing? No it is not. SEO is a tactic, inbound marketing is a strategy. Social strategies are developed with the Markethive tools.
Markethive is In-bound Marketing. It has the tools to communicate through multiple channels simultaneously. SEO is a single channel. You can do in-bound marketing without SEO.
Inbound marketing is really Organic Earned Marketing.
The content you create and publish will over time organically earn you the marketplace you target.
As entrepreneurs using Markethive we see inbound marketing a little differently, we see it as social things we can do on web that earn traffic and attention, without directly costing any money.
Inbound marketing is all about earning attention and love.
There is no single way to do inbound marketing, and it's not about being everywhere. Your goal should not be to have a presence on all channels but to really be present on the channels where your audience exists.
So, how do I get anyone in my audience to pay attention to me and my message?
Brand building.
Inbound marketing helps with brand building and having a good brand helps with inbound marketing.
The best way to build a brand is to be truly remarkable, recognizable and authentic, and to provide the world the the answer to the question “Why”.
But does being truly remarkable, recognizable and authentic and having great content always get enough attention? Not always and usually not enough.
What about attention?
Consumers have a tendency to pay attention only to messages that address a need or interest or are consistent with the consumer’s attitudes, opinions, and beliefs, a selective attention.
Why does Attention become “Selective”?
It has been estimated that the average person may be exposed to over 1,500 ads or brand communications a day. Because a person cannot possibly attend to this amount of information (content) flow, a process called selective attention is used to filter the information, some information gets screened out.
Selective attention means that marketers have to work hard to attract consumers notice. The real challenge is to explain what stimulates people, what will they notice. Here are some findings:
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People are more likely to notice information that relates to a current need. A person who is motivated to buy a computer will notice computer ads; he or she will be less likely to notice DVD ads.
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People are more likely to notice information that they anticipate. You are more likely to notice computers than radios in a computer store because you do not expect the store to carry radios.
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People are more likely to be stimulated when deviations are large in relation to the normal size of the stimulation. You are more likely to notice an ad offering $100 off the list price of a computer than one offering $5 off.
Although people filter out much of the surrounding advertising, you can get favorable attention by contacting your community with unexpected social invitations with appropriate information.
Use Social Publishing to get noticed.
Successful inbound strategies are all about remarkable content – and social publishing allows you to share that valuable information on the social web, engage with your prospects, and put a human face on your brand.
Write and publish, be truly remarkable, recognizable and authentic and interact on the networks where your ideal buyers spend their time.
Be Remarkable, get attention, let people know your story, earn a reputation, inbound marketing is really Organically Earned.
David