Life used to be so easy.  But, as they say, change is the one constant.  The marketing world, too,  continues to evolve.  It use to be easy to promote your business.  You basically had radio, TV and print options.  Even the web has changed… Web 2.0 is creating a completely new culture - world wide!  Folks no longer rely on (much less trust) traditional news sources; they are making a major shift to get information of all types on their computers and on their smart phones.  Just as I’m writing on this blog, millions of people are doing the same or engaging in some form of online activity.  I know in my circles (middle-age) many are scratching their heads about social media - they are, I’ll say, intimidated.  Some feel it’s a fad, some are diving in and others are sitting on the sidelines waiting to see what develops.  Well, in my opinion, it aint goin’ away - it’s not a fad.  The technology today will, of course, evolve, but, the new culture of how people communicate and the new online communities that are being created will continue to grow and mature.

What’s most interesting tot me is how marketing now has to be interactive.  It can no longer be an “outbound” set of tactics.  It’s now a mix of outbound and inbound marketing tactics.  In fact, I believe inbound marketing is where businesses must focus serious attention.  Hubspot is an excellent source for information and on inbound marketing - in fact, they have an Inbound Marketing University!

If a business does not get “in the path” of the communications, doesn’t participate online, they will be invisible.  Best practices today involve putting information online, driving people to it using traditional (outbound) tactics, attracting  people already online, creating interest and dialogue.  When this occurs, and assuming the information is valuable or interesting, the business will be sought after - creating an inbound flow of traffic.  This is why Google places so much emphasis on the value of  external links - the more referring links a site has, the more implication the site truly is a credible resource.  Once a business gets inbound, then the follow up and ongoing engagement becomes key.  But, this is a subject for another post (and prior posts).  I’ll end this with a question:  what is your inbound marketing strategy?