State of Inbound Marketing St. Louis

Inbound Marketing St. Louis Based Firms
Are as Rare as Cats at a Dog Show.?

-There?s a whole lot of Inbound Marketing St. Louis barking going on, but not much bite. When it comes to true Inbound Marketing St. Louis only has a few dogs in the fight. ?So the real question is:

?Who IS making a serious commitment to Inbound Marketing in St. Louis??

The Numbers

464 – Advertising firms listed in the Yellow Pages in St. Louis.

0 ? Number of times mentioned – Inbound Marketing St. Louis Ad Club website.

11 ?Marketing firms – Google inquiry – search term: ?Inbound Marketing St. Louis?

Certification

Of 11, only 4…

…state that they are Hubspot Certified Partners.? No other inbound marketing content management software affiliations, such as Marketo, Eloqua or Pardot are indicated although each of these corporate organizations has purchased PPC listings from Google for ?Inbound Marketing St. Louis.?

Lots of Bark
No Bite

Solo Acts

Of the 11, clearly 2…

… ?agencies? were one-person consultants and 3 others all seemed to be trying to leverage the buzzword ?Inbound Marketing St. Louis,? but had no viable information about inbound marketing; the sites themselves didn?t follow any Inbound Marketing Best Practices.

Inbound Best Practices

Of 11, only 3…

Of the 11 ?inbound agencies? that appeared on the search, only 3 appeared to be actually using any Inbound Marketing Best Practices themselves ????and these efforts were subpar,

?with one exception.

Blogging

Of 11, only 2…

Inbound Marketing St. Louis Consultants, (or anywhere else, for that matter) MUST be using blogging as a primary centerpiece of their inbound content strategy or frankly, they just don?t get it.? Yet surprisingly only 2 of the 11 firms had posted a single blog article in April of 2013 and only one of those was Hubspot certified.

That Certified firm posted 16 articles in April and 19 in May, 2013.

The other firm from the Inbound Marketing St. Louis search posted one article on April 15.? The next most recent posting by any of the firms was March 28 and then January 25.? Obviously these are not the most serious players for Inbound Marketing St. Louis.

Hubspot?s Research:

Nearly 60% of marketers within businesses nationwide say they have adopted Inbound Marketing Strategies . 80% of those say they have integrated Inbound into broader company goals.? Investment by the end user in Inbound Marketing nationwide has increased approximately 50% in each of the past three years.

Inbound Marketing St. Louis:
Why are advertising and marketing agencies so slow to respond?

We believe the answer is two-fold.?

1)????? Ad agencies tend to get addicted to the huge revenues generated by traditional interrupt outbound marketing. We see them resisting the river?s current simply because it means the golden goose will drown.

Resisting the Current

Even if traditional advertising isn?t the best solution, some agencies rely on a single bullet solution: Traditional marketing methods. It’s easier to recommend the familiar over the unfamiliar. One dimensional marketing ideas & campaigns are recommended over business solutions because they don?t want the party to end.

Traditional marketing still has its place. In fact, it can be an important component of the Attraction phase of Inbound Marketing. Most don’t understand how to incorporate Traditional and Digital so they whisper,

?Shh? don?t tell our customers it doesn?t work like it used to.?

2)????? ?We believe that most agencies simply just don?t get it. They all know the internet is changing the way we do business but they don?t understand the dynamics, dimensions and intricacies of Inbound marketing.

It takes guts and hard work to change an entire service philosophy. It takes time & resources to learn a whole new way of thinking and hire talented, knowledgable people.

It takes commitment to lead their entire organization,
and your organization, ?in a new direction.

And by the way, the firm that is Hubspot Certified, posted 35 blog articles in April and May 2013 and was the only one using Inbound Marketing Best Practices;

you?re reading their blog right now.