Why You Need to Know Inbound Marketing
27 Jun 2010 Leave a Comment
in SEO, Social Media, Web Marketing Tags: blogs, inbound marketing, Social Media, Social Networking
If you’re not yet familiar with the term “inbound marketing,” you need to be. The game is changing as far as which marketing efforts are the most cost-effective, and inbound marketing is a game-changer.
Inbound marketing is simply focusing your marketing efforts on pulling prospects towards your business. In other words, you help customers find you instead of you finding the customers. More traditional marketing methods (called outbound marketing) are meant to interrupt people through tactics such as advertising, direct mail and tradeshows. By contrast, today’s inbound marketing attracts prospects using efforts such as blogging, search engine optimization and webinars. The reason it’s so effective is that it takes advantage of the way buyers now want to learn about products: going online and learning how and when they want to.
Inbound marketing is delivering results. According to HubSpot’s 2010 State of Inbound Marketing report, businesses rated every inbound lead generation channel as being more important than any outbound channel. The survey also revealed that:
- Businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on inbound marketing activities spent 60% less per lead than businesses spending 50% or more of their marketing budget on outbound channels.
- Social media and blogs are the fastest growing category in lead generation budgets and they continue to be ranked as the lowest cost lead-generation channel.
- Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs. For Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and company blogs, over 40% of the respondents who use those services for marketing have acquired a customer through each of those channels.
Of those surveyed, 88% are either maintaining or increasing their inbound marketing budgets. Clearly, if you’re not taking advantage of inbound marketing, you’re being left in the dust.
P. S. For free tips from Hubspot on how to get started, you can download their free inbound marketing kit here.
Why PPC Shouldn’t Replace Organic SEO
10 Aug 2009 Leave a Comment
in SEO Tags: pay per click
When compared to more traditional advertising options, pay per click (PPC) campaigns boast one big advantage—you typically only pay for those impressions that result in a click through to your site. But PPC campaigns have their downsides and shouldn’t replace your efforts to improve your organic search engine rankings. Here’s why:
1. Research suggests that some searchers automatically ignore sponsored links, recognizing them for what they are—paid advertising. So, while it’s satisfying to see your company’s ad listed at the top of that search page, it might not get the same response from your potential customer.
2. PPC prices are set by the basic laws of supply and demand. The more popular the keywords you choose, the more expensive they will be. And, as more and more companies enter the game, the one with the deepest pockets wins, as they’re better able to pay a higher price for the most popular terms. Growth in your organic ranking can’t be replicated by a competitor and you can’t be outbid.
3. Google has gotten in on the action with quality scores for your keywords. Simply put, they’re assessing PPC campaigns now and determining to what level your landing page is relevant enough for the keywords you are using. Lower relevance results in a lower quality score—and a higher minimum bid for the advertiser. Web site enhancements that help drive up your organic rankings can also help your quality score.
4. PPC campaigns are easy to turn on, but not as easy to monitor. Many advertisers get sold on the concept of PPC and then assume it will work its magic. In actuality, the best campaigns are those that are analyzed and adjusted regularly. For those who don’t pay attention, advertising dollars can fly out the door very quickly.
