Inbound Marketing vs. Spray and Pray - Workology

Inbound Marketing vs. Spray and Pray Effective Inbound Marketing I do my fair share of talking about the importance and effective uses of blogging as a form of external promotion and what analytics giant, Hubspot  calls inbound marketing.   Companies, individuals, and agencies can benefit from positioning themselves as an expert in their niche or industry field.   This form of  inbound marketing is certainly less expensive than its a more traditional counterpart.   It also oftentimes takes time to develop a following or readership of your blog, but it only takes one person to read your article or blog post to lead to a sale. Effective Inbound Marketing Effective inbound marketing is not just limited to large corporations.   In fact, I believe that small boutique firms and individuals often have a more competitive advantage in this arena.   This is because of the personal touch that small firms can provide to their readers.   While large firms sit in committee and navigate the red tape faster contact and follow up can be made by smaller firms when someone leave a blog comment. Blogs  are a great way to provide your client or prospective client more information about you, your values, and insight into your work as an individual, agency, or corporation.   Blogs provide a more personal opportunity to develop a relationship encouraging your readers to comment, pick up the phone, or read more.   Blogs and articles on websites are in many ways more effective and more engaging than those traditional types of promotion and marketing of which I refer to as  Spray and Pray. The Spray and Pray terminology is something that is very popular in the Multi-Level Marketing industry.   You  spray  your message through posting and distributing fliers, calling your contacts, reading your paper advertisements, and  pray  that they will call you back.   In theory, the Spray and Pray method is not a lot of ways very different from a blog except for two things  1.)  The impact on your business checking account and  2. )  Capturing passive clients. The act of a phone call or email from someone who reads your billboard is an extremely active action.   They must pick up the phone, desire to speak with you, and make a concerted effort to learn more.   This is an awful lot to ask when most newspaper ads and billboards are written with less than 140 characters.   Most consumers are looking for information, engagement, and conversation vs. a sales pitch.   Blogs provide you (the service provider) that opportunity. After hearing Hubspots  Rick Burnes  speak two weeks ago at  Oklahoma Citys American Marketing Association meeting, I was inspired to drive more traffic to my blog, develop relationships, and capture potential lead information more than ever.   Ill be playing with new tools and articles that drive readers to a call to action.   Because having a good blog is good but having a good blog that drives amazing business to you is even better. You might be interested in some more tools regarding blogging: 5 P’s of Blogging Blogging It’s More Than a Brand When Your Blog is My Content Bloggers We’re Media but Better Bloggers BewareLiabilities, Licensing, Legalese