The Web 2.0 revolution introduced people to social networking sites, blogs, wikis and video sharing sites like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube. According to Tim O’Reilly,

“Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the Internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.” These new rules, tools, and technologies have now introduced a new aspect of marketing - The Inbound Marketing.

Inbound marketing is a new marketing strategy for businesses that focuses on the changing business trends and uses the latest Web 2.0 tools and techniques to advertise products and services, and to reach out to customers. The development of applications like Google, Yahoo!, MSN and Amazon initiated the online shopping trend, which was backed up by the social networking sites. Those sites are now the ultimate source to connect and communicate to the targeted market and potential customers. Because of this trend, inbound marketing is all about using SEO (search engine optimization) marketing, blogging, social networking sites and viral campaigns. The popular inbound marketing techniques include referrals and brand searches, free tools and trials, organic search engine optimization, blogging, email newsletters, webinars, pay-per-click advertising, sponsorships and other social media (Kartik, 2008).

Inbound marketing offers many advantages over traditional outbound marketing. This methodology is quick, efficient and result oriented. Lisa Almeida in her article, Understanding Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing, describes the advantages of an inbound marketing strategy.

“Not only is inbound marketing more polite, it produces better results because:

• the relationship factor leads to higher … client conversion
• the loyalty factor leads to more repeat sales
• the methods for implementing it are far less expensive than traditional outbound methods
• it’s highly track-able so you can easily adjust to improve results
• there are a lot of easy to use, ready-made tools for the technically challenged.”

Inbound Marketing Methods:

Inbound marketing strategy aims to create a loyal community, building long-term relationships with people and encouraging them to talk to others about you. Therefore, inbound marketing methods include blogs, social media sites and search engine optimization.

Social Media Marketing – Due to the wide accessibility and great influence of social media –Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Digg, del.icio.us - it is now the focus of every marketing strategy. A successful social media campaign results in greater brand exposure, increased word of mouth buzz, thousands of genuine visitors to the site and natural links improving the site’s ranking in search engines. Therefore, devising an effective social media marketing plan is very critical. The Strategicast blog has given some statistics, issued by Hitwise and Nielsen-Online, about the growth and usage of social media.

• The top 10 social networking sites attracted 131.5 million unique visitors in the month of December (US only).
• Average time spent by visitors to MySpace and Bebo was around 30 minutes for December. Additionally, Facebook visitors spent 20 minutes.
• 95% of the MySpace traffic in December was returning users. Facebook and Bebo saw 93% and 84% respectively.

Social media marketing is inevitable for a business. It is a powerful inbound marketing method and businesses are seriously using it as a part of their online marketing plan.

Search Engine Optimization – It is another inbound marketing method that is effective but a bit time consuming. Having good PR increases your site’s visibility in search engines and drives more relevant traffic to the site. A successful SEO strategy includes defining the right keywords, optimizing the site for these keywords, and getting quality back links. Kartik Trivedi in his post, Inbound Marketing Method, describes the importance of SEO for a business. He says, “At HubSpot and many of our other clients that follow the right internet marketing strategy, the effect of SEO on inbound lead generation is cumulative and compounding. In other words, month after month, as long as we keep creating great content and building smart links, the number of leads we generate from SEO goes up and up and up.”

Blogging – It is a popular web 2.0 technique and an effective inbound marketing method. Blogs are being greatly used by businesses to advertise and to communicate with customers. Most major companies like Microsoft and Google are maintaining blogs to interact with their customers. Blogs offer some unique features like comments, trackback and tags that bring qualified leads to your site and improve site traffic. Blogging helps businesses develop their position and reputation, brand awareness, direct communication with customers and indirect search engine marketing. Blogging, in fact, is the backbone of a successful inbound marketing strategy.

Inbound marketing is a relatively new concept but it is quickly gaining popularity due to its popular and effective methods. I believe instead of using all these techniques separately, it will be more beneficial for businesses and individuals to use all these marketing techniques together under the umbrella of inbound marketing.

References:

Kartik Trivedi. (2008). Inbound Marketing Methods. Retrieved Sept. 23^th, 2008 from http://ktrivedi.com/2008/09/02/inbound-marketing-methods/

Lisa Almeida. Understanding Outbound Vs Inbound Marketing. Retrieved Sept. 23^th, 2008 from http://ezinearticles.com/?Understanding-Outbound-Vs-Inbound-Marketing&id=1462289

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