Inbound Marketing: Tool or Tactic?

salesforce pardot Inbound Marketing TOOL OR TAČTIC? WHAT TO REALLY EXPECT FROM INBOUND MARKETING The marketing game is changing fast and as more companies move to inbound marketing, more products, tools, and companies are capitalizing on this shift by offering inbound marketing software. However, inbound marketing is a tactic, not a tool. There is no plug-and-play solution that will do inbound marketing for you. Here's a look at what you should really expect from inbound marketing. WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING? What qualifies as inbound marketing and how does it differ from outbound? INBOUND OUTBOUND So what sort of marketing activities make up inbound marketing campaigns? Let's take a look. Two-Way One-Way SOCIAL Communication is a two-way conversation in inbound marketing. Outbound communication is SEO typically one way, sending messeges to an audience. Value-Focused Lead-Focused Inbound marketing is focused on delivering value and building relationships. The focus of outbound BLOGGING PR marketing is on generating and nurturing leads. You Are Found You Are Targeting Inbound marketing brings the audience of customers Outbound requires you to target your ideal audience with your messages. VISUALS VIDEO directly to you. Diverse Audience Targeted Audience Inbound audiences are always changing, growing, and expanding to new groups. Outbound audiences are WEBINARS EVENTS usually targeted to a set demographic or audience. WHAT DOES IT TAKE? Inbound marketing requires more effort than marketers expect and it can take months to see results. 5. hours 92% 57% hours An average blog post requires at least an hour to complete. Blogging once a day can eat up a large portion of your time and 43% of marketers in a recent Vertical Response survey reported spending 6 or more hours on social media a week. That's over 92% of companies report thát blogging multiple times a day is the key to acquiring customers. This means at least 2 hours per Over half (57%) of markėters listed SEO as just one piece of an inbound strategy and a required daily activity for their marketing department. resources each week. one hour per day! day spent writing blog posts. In practice, even best-in-class inbound strategies at least 12 months to show results and often longer. Many marketers expect immediate results from inbound marketing. O months 6 months 12 months The Truth Behind the Buzz Companies are making millions on inbound marketing tools, but they aren't telling the whole story. Do you need an all-in-one tool? Despite what many inbound marketing companies are saying, you do not need an expensive all- in-one tool to run your inbound marketing. Many of the tools required for a successful inbound marketing strategy are available for free and can be easily integrated. See the following section for more information about these tools. Can inbound really be "plug-and-play"? Although inbound marketing is the key to modern marketing success, it is not nearly the "plug-and-play" type solution many inbound marketing tools say it is. Inbound marketing success takės time, even years, to generate real results and requires serious work. No inbound tool is going to do the work for you. Is inbound really a low-cost strategy? İnbound marketing is often billed as a low-cost alternative to traditional marketing and often can be. However, popular inbound marketing tools are often very pricey considering the free alternatives. Quality inbound marketing also requires a great deal of time and resources in addition to the spend for inbound software. ALL THE TOOLS YOU NEED ARE OUT THERE Marketers can assemble a powerful suite of inbound tools at little to no cost. WEBINARS BLOGGING SOCIAL SEO ANALYTICS Cisco webex WORDPRESS Google Analytics GoTOMeeting CİTRIX B Blogger hootsuite webtrends WordPress SEO by Yoast Social Media Management ETypePad S buffer Google AKISSmetrics ReadyTalk Webmaster Tools YOU NEED MORE THAN INBOUND Inbound will fill the top of your sales funnel, but how do you move these leads to close? DRIP NURTURING LEAD SCORING & GRADING Inbound marketing can only fill inbound the top of your funnel with leads. When it comes to pulling those leads through the funnel, you need Marketing Automation CRM INTEGRATION PROSPECT P TRACKING and its powerful suite of features marketing automation to move leads to closed deals. Key marketing automation features: EMAIL MARKETING CLOSED-LOOP A REPORTING For more information on marketing automation, vist Pardot.com salesforce pardot SOURCES 2013 State of Inbound Marketing - HubSpot Verfical Response