Digital Inbound Marketing - They're Your Organization's Assets and You Must Build and Guard Them Dearly

Are the days of SEO service providers numbered? I think so and I'll explain why.

Two articles hit my inbox last week that I think help better explain why I think the end of SEO firms is in sight.  Why so I think this? Because clients of all kinds will soon realize (if they haven't already) that outsourcing their SEO, Search Engine Marketing and Social Media Marketing is dangerous to the f...

Thought For The Week

This is the inspirational memo Apple employees receive on their first day.

"There's work and there's your life's work.

The kind of work that has your fingerprints all over it. The kind of work that you'd never compromise on. That you'd sacrifice a weekend for. You can do that kind of work at Apple. People don't come here to play it safe. They come here to swim in the deep end.

They want their work to add up to something.

Something big. Something that couldn't happen ...

The words from Apple’s infamous “Here’s to the crazy ones” advertising campaign…

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they chan...

I'm in a unique position, I can take an "inside out" approach to Digital Marketing because of my unique background. I've been a CEO for the majority of my business career and understand the complexity of running an organization. As well, I've been doing this, meaning Digital Marketing, since the mid-90's. That's as long or longer as anyone.

I was a CEO over 30 years and have seen a whole lot of change and nothing is changing as rapidly as marketing today. Years ago there was usually no more ...

I admit it - damn it,  I’m an Internet addict. I have been since I first encountered the Web. My name is Maurice Bretzfield.

I first saw the Internet during the late spring or early summer of 1994. It blew my mind and changed the trajectory of my life.

I read an article in the paper about a local philanthropist and how he had donated a computer and Internet connection to the local library and went off to see what this Internet thing that I’d been hearing about was all about. I was about 47 ...

During the talks that I give I'm often asked "what is Inbound Marketing". Well, simply it's a combination of elements woven together into a system, a contextual marketing system, that is data-driven and produces superior ROI (Return on Investment). That's the short and easy answer.

I think that the term "Inbound Marketing" is misleading - and outdated. What we are really talking about here is "contextual marketing", a data-driven marketing system that turns traditional marketing on its hea...

I attend a regular TEDx event here in New York City. We meet weekly, watch a TED talk and then discuss it among the group. It's an hour well spent and I invite you to join us at 5:30 on Friday evenings in a great space in Midtown  (contact me if you are interested in joining us).

A couple of years ago we watched a great talk, "The Mathematics of History", given by Google Fellow, Jean Baptiste-Michel. It was a fascinating glimpse into the future of data analysis and sparked a conversation ...

I recently heard a joke about Microsoft.

Two men are flying in a balloon above Seattle - but the pilot is lost. Drifting over a building the pilot draws a sign and holds it up. The sign says “WHERE AM I?” in large letters.

People looking out of the buildings windows quickly respond to the pilot by holding up a sign that says

“YOU'RE IN A BALLOON!”

The pilot smiles, waves, takes a look at his map and steers a course to his destination.

After their safe landing the passenger asks the p...

Video is now a key component of any data/content driven Inbound Marketing strategy.

Throughout 2012, video marketing for B2B businesses showed an upward trend in both effectiveness and popularity, and most industry observers expect this to continue into 2013 and beyond.

Here are a few relevant findings: 

Research firm and reviews publisher, Software Advice, recently found in their 2012 B2B Demand Generation Benchmark Survey that video was the second most popular type of content used ac...

You've heard it, "on the Internet, content is king". But it bears repeating, "on the Internet, content is king" - because it is, it really, really is!

But, there is content and then there is effective content.  Your organization must create effective content - content that communicates in a meaningful way. This is content that is carefully crafted based on what you already know that your customer finds compelling and useful, and most important, content that they want from you.

Because cont...

Define Your Purpose

Defining your purpose is an essential first step in the creation of a successful Inbound Marketing Strategy.

1.     A defined purpose will save you money, because you can create very specific, targeted content with simpler messages. Your content will be shorter and easier to digest, and you won’t need to spend money on creative ways to appeal to “everybody” all at once.

2.     With more crafted and targeted messages, you’re more likely to see a response that ...

It's not enough to “do” Inbound Marketing. To see great results organizations must commit to the model, optimize it continually, and pursue it relentlessly. The result is a vastly diminished cost of customer acquisition provable by measuring ROI.

The difference is that Inbound Marketing integrates business process and technology to drive higher-value lead generation through data-driven demand cr...

Inbound-Outbound...Outbound-Inbound - It's All Marketing. What's the Difference?

Outbound Marketing and advertising, including digital outbound, has become highly ineffective and shows meager ROI. Because customers are fast forwarding through TV commercials, ignoring direct postal mail and are ignoring outbound email messages that don't compel them - they are ineffective and provide marketers with unacceptable return on time and cost invested in them.

Inbound Marketing fixes this by repla...