The Broad Reach Chronicles

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 creation.

As with any strategy, to be effective Inbound Marketing must be carefully planned and understood by everyone involved.

Here are some issues to consider when developing your plan:

• Inbound Marketing delivers measurable and demonstrable ROI.
• Inbound Marketing works best when it is integrated with your overall marketing strategy - not as a siloed or side project. Inbound Marketing is "customer-centric marketing".
• Inbound marketing is leading a shift away from the internal focus on sales, marketing, and product, toward strategic decision-making based on the wants and needs of customers.
• Inbound Marketing requires a holistic strategy that, to be effective requires an intimate understanding of your customers.
• Your content, textual or visual must be compelling - it must delight your customers and it must combine context.
• Inbound Marketing is scalable.The size of your organization doesn't matter.
• The process of developing your Inbound Marketing strategy begins with understanding the tasks involved in building and executing your strategy.

Consider these factors carefully before embarking on the development of your Inbound Marketing plan. And by all means bring in a consultant who can help you understand what Inbound Marketing is and what it entails and who can guide you through the process of developing and deploying your plan.

Before you can embark on the development of a successful Inbound Marketing strategy you must define your purpose. I'll discuss this in my next blog post.