Marketing on the Web
How Inbound Marketing is Changing the World
Marketing on the web is the single most important marketing issue to face business owners in decades.? It is more than a ?trend.?
Web based marketing, including Inbound Marketing has become a foundational mandate in marketing plans for any business that hopes to survive one of the most significant shifts in the social buying decision paradigm in years.
Just using the word ?trending? says a lot about where marketing is headed.
That used to mean a longer term movement of social behavior, but is now a term used to describe something new:
- The past hour?s news bursts on Twitter
- The most recent ?share? on Facebook
- The latest business update on LinkedIn.
Does your business’ strategic marketing plan even mention Twitter?
Marketing on the Web – The Past is not the Future
The town where I grew up was centered around one of the first shopping malls in the country with one of the first mall-based Sears stores.? Today when I drive by this once vibrant scene of activity, I see a skeleton of closed store fronts and empty parking lots. The adjacent strip malls have been stripped down to shells.
What happened??
What has changed??
Change is good for Inbound Marketers
One of the key factors is the development of web based marketing.
85% of people using the internet shop on line before making their decision.
(source:?eCommerce Times)
Online shoppers in the United States will spend $327 billion in 2016, up 45% from $226 billion this year and 62% from $202 billion in 2011, according to a projection released by Forrester Research Inc.
(source:?Internet Retailer)
Certainly something can be said for demographic shifts and aging populace causing the demise of the shopping malls, but frankly, the percentage of products purchased over the internet has increased so steadily every year that the retail paradigm is what is shifting.
People haven’t changed…their purchasing habits have.
There are simply so many more people shopping online every year that the once vibrant business model of hundreds of retail stores can no longer be supported as it once was by the emerging economic pattern.
To capitalize on this dollar shift from in-store to online, marketers have dabbled in PPC, SEO, Social Media and email marketing. But very few connected the dots. Until now?
Inbound Marketing Connects
Inbound Marketing connects the online marketing dots to raise ?marketing on the web to a disciplined science.? This includes retail and business-to-business buying decisions.? This also includes the growing tendency of people seeking referrals through, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media sites.
Are you being found online? Does your marketing plan attract?
If your website is not the one being found by the people researching these decisions, you?re probably not marketing yourself properly on the web. And the customer won?t find you.
Inbound Marketing is not simply putting up a brochure website and waiting for the phone to ring. That?s so 1996?
A properly designed Inbound website is only one component of an overall system of web related strategies all designed to work interactively to reach your marketing goals.
We refer to the resulting system as a Conversion Machine.
A properly designed web based marketing plan carefully synchronizes internet tactics is to attract, educate and then convert Visitors into Leads and Leads to Customers.
Synchronicity for Marketing on the Web
This synchronized activity is all coordinated by marketing automation software that is used to manage various Inbound Marketing components that include:
- Website content
- email marketing
- Social contacts
- Database segmentation and management
- Marketing workflows
- Analytics.
As you can see, in order to make all of this work, a tremendous amount of information about your business, products and services must be created, compiled, organized, and distributed.? This information is what we call ?content.?? Today, Content is King in the eyes of the consumer and in the eyes of Google. Who else really matters?
In the new Information Age we call Digitalism, Inbound Marketing is changing the way the world does business. Think of it as applied science for your web-based marketing.
To learn more about how Inbound Marketing can help your business grow take this free 10 minute survey:
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