Just What is Inbound Marketing? Seven Key Elements

  

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Inbound Marketing?

Let's be clear!

Key Takeaways:

1. Inbound marketing is a comprehensive online marketing approach;
2. It is not magic so it doesn't generate instant results;
3. It's easy and provides exceptional ROI. (NOTE: Easy doesn't mean that there isn't effort required!)

It's pretty difficult to avoid all the talk surrounding the internet and how to use it for business purposes (read that as getting new clients!) and it can be confusing. The fact is that use of the internet as a primary information source continues to grow in popularity and this trend shows no signs of slowing, but how do you turn this trend to your company's advantage? The talk that you've heard from friends, peers and associates has probably been about social media and SEO both of which are key inbound marketing elements and there are of companies out there willing to work for you on these individual elements...but what about all the other key elements? This is where inbound marketing distinguishes itself, it is not about just SEO or just social media, instead inbound marketing is a proven methodology that delivers powerful results based on seven key inbound marketing elements. If your company really wants to see the kinds of results that you've heard or read about, it's unlikely that SEO or social media tactics alone will achieve the results you are looking for. Enter inbound internet marketing.

Inbound marketing is comprised of seven separate elements that, working together, have a synergistic effect. How does that old saying go, "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts." or something like that. Inbound internet marketing (we use this and inbound marketing interchangeably) works by drawing in your target audience, pulling them to you if you will, by providing them with the information they're looking for in their search to solve their problem. What are these seven key elements?

1. Content- the information that your target audience is searching for;
2. Social Media- the vehicle that will promote or amplify your message and facilitate your 'conversation' with your market;
3. Landing Pages- these specialized pages provide your prospects with offers that engage them so that they begin a top of the marketing and sales funnel lead relationship with you;
4. Lead Nurturing- this process supports your new lead with additional information and resources so that when they are ready to "buy" your company is positioned as the vendor of choice;
5. SEO- or search engine optimization is systematically applied to elements 1-4 in order to achieve the best results possible for your efforts on the web;
6. Analytics- give you the needed data so that you can effectively evaluate the results of your actions for future development as well as providing ROI related performance indicators;
7. Repetition- simply repeat what works for you and drop what doesn't. While there is a certain amount of intuitiveness in this area, the data from your analytics package will provide data that will specifically indicate what does and doesn't work for your company.

There you have it. How does it all come together? At Inbound Marketing Experts we put it this way:

Inbound marketing combines (or marries or integrates) content development, social media engagement, landing page creation and lead nurturing with SEO and analytics to provide a repeatable process for companies to effectively develop new business from their internet development initiatives resulting in very high ROI. In other words, more traffic, more leads, more business.

What would you add to this? Which inbound marketing elements are you currently using? Which are you neglecting? Tell us your successes or ask us about how you might get better results from your efforts, we're here to help. If you haven't started, your competition has...get started today!

We're at the edge of the future!

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