What will all marketers fired in the next 18 months have in common?

They don’t understand inbound marketing…

As marketers, we’ve been beat over the head for the last two years with what is no longer working.  How many times have we heard that the reality of reachability and addressability has shifted the balance of control to the consumer and that our traditional approaches have begun a painful death spiral?  What’s been missing from this conversation, which is often the case in times of change, is a meaningful conversation about the path ahead. In recent months, however, and flying under the radar an emergent school of thought has arisen that points to our collective future – inbound marketing.  With a tip of the hat to Hubspot whom, with support of the SEM, WOM, and social media agencies, has chiefly defined the space.  The ambition of this piece is to define what inbound marketing is and then investigate the specifics of what is involved in launching an engaging inbound program.

Growing understanding of what is Inbound Marketing

A colleague of mine Connie Bensen (you can read more about her thought leadership in the social space at http://conniebensen.com) asked me to comment on an article by Blaine Mathieu on how email can be used in combination with SEM to drive synergistic results.

http://www.adotas.com/2009/10/email-yin-and-search-yang-a-symbiotic-relationship/

I like the direction for sure, but from my perspective, though, Baline is just scratching the surface of what is a well formed inbound strategy. As more and more interactions continue to flow “off deck” into the vast social-sphere the traditional, siloed campaigns will continue to decline in effectiveness. The focus needs to shift to the content. Invest in developing something valuable to the community and then use every possible avenue to make it available to them. Yes, I think the collision of CMS/SEM/Email can be effective – in so far that they can work in combination to make your content more accessible and findable by those that seek it. Everything must be done with an eye towards what’s happening outside your walls and how you can best contribute to the conversation.