The Best of the Web Articles. The concept of Inbound Marketing the cornerstone of social marketing. Enjoy our weekly guest post.

In 2001, when the last downturn began, companies began shifting marketing budgets to inbound paid search engine advertising. Inbound marketing is more measurable and focused than display advertising, so it has always appealed to marketers with tight budgets. In 2009, companies are again looking for greater cost-effectiveness. Inbound Marketing budgets now include website optimisation and social media, in addition to paid search advertising (Pay Per Click or PPC). The objective is to improve organic search results. We’re entering a new era of web marketing – the Inbound Marketing era. It’s marketing which is focused on customers finding your business. With traditional outbound marketing, the focus is on your company setting out to find customers. Outbound techniques are often poorly targeted and “interrupt” prospects. The traditional outbound techniques include cold-calling, direct mail and eMail advertising. These techniques are becoming less effective and more expensive. For example, caller ID technology can block cold telephone calls.

It’s still possible to get a marketing message out using these methods, but it costs more.

Inbound Marketing turns outbound marketing around Instead of interrupting prospects with for example magazine ads, marketers create their own blogsites that people subscribe to and choose to read.

Outbound Inbound Print ads Blogs, eBooks, White Papers, Thought leadership content TV ads Viral YouTube videos Telemarketing SEO, PPC Exhibitions Webinars, Social media Direct mail / eMail News feeds, RSS Instead of cold calling, marketers create interesting content so that people contact them, seeking more information. Instead of repeating their message over and over again like a hammer, they attract qualified prospects like a magnet.

Component #1: Content Content is key to any Inbound Marketing campaign. It’s the information that attracts prospects to your site.

Component #2: Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) SEO makes it easy for prospects to find your content. It’s the practice of using strategies to maximise your ranking in search engines, the place where most prospects begin the buying process.

Component #3: Social Media Social media can increase the impact of your content. When the content is discussed and referenced on networks of personal contacts, it’s more likely to draw prospects to your site.

Why Inbound Marketing is effective in a downturn With a slowing economy, many companies are using Inbound Marketing because it’s a more efficient way of using marketing budgets. There are three ways in which Inbound Marketing is more efficient than traditional Outbound Marketing: Outbound Marketing involves spending significant budget – buying ads, taking out stands at exhibitions etc. Inbound Marketing involves creating content, talking about it on the web and optimising it. A blog costs very little and a Twitter account is free. Both can draw thousands of customers to your company’s website. The ROI from Inbound Marketing is higher than Outbound Marketing.

Targeting is more effective Traditional outbound techniques like cold-calling, and mass mailings can frequently be poorly targeted. Very often the prospects are simply selected using one or two attributes from a database. With Inbound Marketing, prospects self-qualify themselves. They show an interest in your content, and are as a result, likely to be interested in your products or services.

Inbound marketing is a long-term investment, not an expense For example, with magazine advertising the ad is forgotten and never returned to after just a few weeks. On the other hand, if you invest that budget in quality content that is ranked highly in Google or Yahoo’s organic results, the investment is ongoing.

The Roots of Inbound Marketing The technology and the public’s use of the internet have now evolved to the point where Inbound Marketing is both practical and cost-effective. In the early days, there was no “mainstream” Inbound Marketing. There were lots of internet experiments but few real prospects. In the mid-90s, companies started to follow their customers onto the web. Tools for independent publishing were not available, so companies advertised using mass-media sites and hoped that a few potential customers would see their ads. Since the start of the new millennium, marketers have been re-assessing the effectiveness of this approach. Prospects have moved from accessing advertising sites to using search engines. Marketers discovered that targeted search-engine SEO was more effective than display ads on media sites. Ever-increasing budgets are now allocated to search marketing, and a new era of Internet growth has been established – the era of Inbound Marketing. In addition to these changes, prospects are also using platforms where prospects can comment, publish and share content. With the 2009 economic downturn, online marketers are using new tools to take advantage of this new “read-write” internet. Marketers are using social media, they’re publishing their own content and they are optimising it. They are becoming Inbound Marketers.

The Inbound-Marketing Secret Weapon – Personal empowerment When the dot-com bubble collapsed, the idea of a one-man-business using focused content, social media and search engine optimisation to build a £100M business in the course a few years would have been absurd. Yet that’s exactly what is now happening – this is what can be achieved with Inbound Marketing. Using the online tools that have become mainstream over the last two years or so, the growth of any business can be unlimited. If you have the right products or services and the skills to communicate with prospects, you can compete with the biggest marketing budgets. That’s personal empowerment.

Research confirming the 2009 budget emphasis on Lead Generation Research carried out by Gartner confirms the 2009 budget emphasis on Lead Generation:• 26% expect no change in marketing budget from 2008 • 44% expect a budget decrease between 1% – 25% • Only 6% expect a budget increase of more than 25% • 23% expect a budget increase between 1%-24% • 47% of those budgets which were decreased was due to the economic climate • Other reasons were shift in priorities to other segments and changes in marketing strategy • Although most of you felt advertising campaigns (print, direct mail, etc) and trade shows and local events were ‘extremely important’ to do your job, both of those activities took the biggest hit in marketing spend reductions for 2009. • Headcount is taking a big hit with budget reductions • Joint demand and lead generation campaigns are two areas where additional monies are going to be spent over 2008 levels. • Manual estimations are the second most frequent way ROI is calculated while 18% of you still don’t have any tools to measure effectiveness.

Research confirming the 2009 budget switch from Outbound Marketing to Inbound Marketing

A HubSpot survey on Inbound Marketing found an emphasis on Inbound Marketing techniques. SMEs are spending a 180% greater proportion of their budgets on blogging/social media and 36% greater on SEO than businesses with 50 employees or more. SMEs are using their budgets on paid and organic search (30% of budget); eMail marketing (11%); telemarketing (8%); printed direct mail (8%) and exhibitions (6%). The remaining 23% of their budgets includes PR etc. Inbound Marketing is considered far more effective (for companies of all sizes) when compared to Outbound Marketing. According to the report, Inbound marketing results in a lower cost per lead than Outbound Marketing. For the companies responding, Inbound Marketing averaged £55 cost per lead, whereas Outbound Marketing averaged more than double at £145 cost per lead. Read my article “Top 6 B2B Cost Per Lead Campaign Metrics” to get more information about Lead Costs.

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