Inbound Marketing

We are often asked if the core principles behind inbound marketing are a fad. Won’t social media and search engine optimisation die out as new, more exciting developments take over? Surely businesses are better off sticking to traditional techniques; the methods that got them results decade after decade in the 20th century?

First, I correct them. Social media and search engine optimisation are not the core principles of inbound marketing. The core principles are; being in the right place at the right time, listening to your clients, engaging with your community and offering a remarkable user experience. These principles are not new. They have always been valued by the consumer. It’s just that in days gone by the technology wasn’t available to deliver them on a mass scale.

Well times have changed. Now the consumer can have all these things in an instant and they know it; a development that has left the slick but ultimately superficial advertising of the past looking rather frail. The organisations now capturing market share are those that push the bullshit to one side and concentrate on the needs rather than the weaknesses of the consumer. They position themselves in the most convenient places, engage rather than broadcast and over deliver at every opportunity. This is what the consumer has come to expect in 2011. And now that they have had a taste of how good things can be, they have no intention of taking a backward step.

So is inbound marketing a fad? Well, kind of. In ten years from now we’ll just call it marketing.

1. An Introduction to Inbound Marketing
   1. Web 2.0
   2. Some fictional, real life examples (if that makes any sense)
   3. Online inbound marketing – A Quick Breakdown
2. Branding
3. The website
4. Content Marketing
5. The Search Engines
   1. The Easiest Market Research you ever Saw
   2. Competition Analysis
6. Social Media
   1. Social Bookmarking Sites
   2. Blogging
   3. YouTube and online video
   4. LinkedIn
   5. Twitter
   6. Flickr
   7. Facebook
   8. A few smaller ones worth a mention
   9. Google+
   10. FourSquare
   11. Groupon
   12. MySpace
7. Email Marketing
8. Conversion rate Optimisation
9. Final Checklist
10. Where Next?
11. Conclusion