Have you ever had someone stare at you blankly when you say you're an inbound marketer?
If you've had trouble explaining the concept to friends, family, colleagues, or bosses, you're not alone. Inbound marketing concepts can be complicated for people to grasp if they're new to things like SEO, social media, blogging, marketing automation -- any kind of digital marketing, frankly.
So whenever we speak to people who aren't very well-versed in inbound marketing tactics, we like to break it down into more relatable terms. In fact, over the years, we like to think we've perfected some pretty apt analogies that liken inbound marketing to everyday things that everyone can understand. So we're using this blog post to share those inbound marketing analogies with you -- because we love inbound marketing, and we want to help more people understand it! Take a look at some of our favorite analogies we've used to explain inbound marketing concepts, and share your own in the comments.
Inbound marketing is like dating ...
You don't ask someone to marry you on the first date. People get kind of freaked out when you do that. You get to know each other first, then introduce the friends, then the family, and then, once you know the whole package looks good, you put a ring on it.
But if you're doing something like slapping 'Contact Us' as the only call-to-action on every page of your site, that's essentially what you're doing -- asking your leads to get too serious, too soon. Why would they commit to someone they just met? Play it cool, man. Let them get to know you first. Maybe through ohhh, I don't know ... an ebook? If they like the looks of you from your ebook, then they have a reason to actually want to get to know you better. That's when you can step it up a notch and offer them something a little more committed, like anything in that little blue circle in the diagram below. If it goes well -- you've been vouched for by some case studies, they have that warm, fuzzy feeling from your custom demo -- then ask them to put a ring on it. Or email an invoice ... you know what I mean ;-)
Blogging is like jogging ...
You're going to see better results if you do it 30 minutes every other day than if you run like a total maniac just once a month.
We often hear people say they've tried blogging, but "it doesn't work." When we dig a little deeper, however, we find that they blogged three days in a row last January and then gave up when their site traffic didn't jump. Big shock. Business blogging requires consistent, long-term effort, not short sprints of intense activity. You'll see much better results blogging every other day for a year than blogging twice a day for two weeks, stopping, then starting again four months later. At that frequency, neither readers nor crawlers know when on earth to visit your site.
Keyword strategy is like applying to college ...
You're going to apply to reach, target, and safety schools. You might get into your reach school, your safety schools are a sure thing, and everything in between is what you're gunning for ... and with hard work, you'll probably get in, too.
Approach your keyword selection the same way. There are some really desirable keywords out there that you'd like to rank for, but they're also typically quite competitive -- think head terms like, say, "internet marketing." You should put some effort into ranking for these "ivy league" terms, sure, but you're going to see much quicker returns if you target some "community college" terms, or long-tail keywords. They still provide you great business results, but they're much easier to rank for.
And while you make quick work of ranking for those long-tail phrases , you can invest more effort into those "target school" keywords that fall somewhere in between long tail and head terms -- the ones that will be a boon for your business if you rank for them, take some serious work, but are still within the realm of possibility based on their search volume and competitiveness.
You can actually apply the college application metaphor to SEO as a discipline. If you study hard and do your best work consistently while you're in school, you'll get into a great college, too. If you consistently create excellent content , your hard work will be similarly rewarded with excellent rankings in the SERPs -- for keywords of all difficulty levels.
The internet is like a popularity contest ...
The more people that vote for you, the more likely it is you'll make prom queen. Or class president. Or chess club secretary.
This analogy helps people understand how inbound links work. When content is really good, people want to link to it. That's how the "internet" knows your content is good -- lots of people have linked to, or "voted for" it. And since Google only wants to return the best results in the SERPs to make their searchers happy, the more times people have voted that your content is great via their inbound links, the more likely it is you'll show up in the top search results for a related term.
The conversion path is like a Discovery Channel documentary ...
Wait, what? Stay with me, this one's awesome. The conversion path is like a Discovery Channel documentary. You lure an animal in, capture it, tag it, then release it back into the wild.
The conversion path refers to the process that turns site visitors into leads and customers -- the call-to-action, landing page, form submission, and thank-you page. Here's how this Discovery Channel analogy breaks down:
- Call-to-Action (The Bait): Lure them in with a compelling offer, promoted with some enticing messaging and an eye-catching design.
- Landing Page (The Capture): You've got them in your grips! You just need to make sure they don't escape -- remove your navigation, write clear copy, make sure your landing page is well optimized -- before you're able to get the information you need. Which leads us to ...
- Form (The Tag): They fill out their information so you know who they are. That way, when they leave your site to go back into that internet wild, you'll still be able to identify them among all the other visitors when they come back to your site.
- Thank-You Page (The Release): Once you've captured your lead intelligence , you can release them to explore other elements of your site, or even off-site elements like your social media accounts.
Marketing automation is like air travel ...
You could get take three days to drive there in a car. Or you could hop on a plane and get there in 5 hours.
That's the value of automating your marketing -- where you can, at least. Let's consider email automation, for example. You could spend time crafting a personalized email message for everyone on your email list -- like, every one of the hundreds of thousands of people on your email list -- and then take the time to individually email every single one of those people with your message. One. by. one. Oh, and then you can do the follow-up for all of them, too!
Or, you might realize after writing your tenth email that you're saying basically the same thing in every email, with maybe just a few exceptions -- because they've all been properly segmented, so they all have one specific thing in common. So instead of spending days or weeks sending out those emails manually, you could simply segment out that list of people in your marketing automation tool , insert some dynamic fields in the content to personalize it, and then nurture them further down the road based on their response to that email ... all of which is documented in your CRM. Documented and followed-up with automatically , not manually.
Doesn't that seem like a better use of time? I think so.
What other analogies do you use to explain inbound marketing (or aspects of it) to newbies?
Image credit: busyPrinting
Inbound Marketing Blog Feed
Mariana Sola 9:39 AM on August 28, 2012
What about "Inbound Marketing is like the movie FIELD OF DREAMS?" See article here.
http://www.weidert.com/whole_brain_marketing_blog/bid/108569/Field-of-Dreams-Teaches-Valuable-Inbound-Marketing-Lessons
Another great analogy.
Jon Nugent 9:46 AM on August 28, 2012
You also need a sales process that is in line with your customers decision making process.
HubSpot has a very defined sales process with call and close ratios that your prospects and customers would like to know more about.
Using your analogy about dating, having an inbound marketing process without a sales process is going home alone.
Enterprise Queue Management System 9:56 AM on August 28, 2012
Customers are the most key component for organization. Specially, for the service oriented organization including Government, customers visit their service centers for different reasons. Managing the customer flow process by one-stop service centers is critical to keep the service quality. Effective customer flow depends on the customers, who should have clear options and convenient, timely access to services that lead to positive results and high customer satisfaction.
Typically, the service centers frequently face the problem of undisciplined queues; causing tension and stress among both customers and employees which result in efficiency decline. Special service desks remain mostly under-utilized. Customers take back the impression based from the experience of service quality at the service center. While customers & employees remain unhappy; management has not enough data to improve customer service & the human resources.
Device based queue management system has introduced few decades ago to improve from barrier based queue system by several companies. Pre-printed tokens or button based token dispenser with calling terminals are primarily hardware based queue system. It got popularity because of quick deployment solution at that time. However, over times, the management could not obtained data for analyzing the queue in this system. Some of the device based companies improved with some reports, but it was not enough.
With the advancement in IT, lots of companies have come forward to overcome the shortage of data analytical demand from a queue management system. Software based queue system prefers touch based token dispenser to capture customer visit type selection and place the undisciplined queue in virtual queue. System defines the token to route to the available counters based on customers’ selected service. The concept of digital signage has also began to open new dimension in queue management system. The managers become enabled to view data on waiting customers and the operation team can work on data to optimize the resources for improvement.
This has revolution in queue system. With the regular launching of new digital devices, the importance of customer relation management (CRM) in business and involvement of different department for their own needs have expanded the expectations from queue system. The improvement of network connectivity with low cost, the organizations are exploring for deployment of centralized computerized queue management system suitable as enterprise grade solution. Computerized queue management system is becoming a part of IT projects within organizations for taking initiative to use their existing hardware and database to reduce the cost of investment, taking leverage of using internal network connectivity within the branches for central system management and reporting on the customer flow data.
Today, the entire queue management has become parameter based configuration on web platform where it can be done based on individual branches. The service desk access the token using browser based soft keypad instead of device. Features like service pledge management, promotion management, appointment management including by call center operation, branch management console, customer segmentation management, priority management, language management, customer interface menu management, SMS management have given organizations much dynamism to improve their queue system with other corporate strategies by different department. The integration of database with BI tools has opened enormous opportunities in analysis.
Dimensions in queue management has not come to stable rather the demands from business users are coming. It is expected that there will be consolidation of different workflow systems with queue management as it is the primary interface with customers.
About the author:
Shoeb Ahmed Masud is one of the co-founders of Business Automation Ltd. working for developing queue management system since 2005. The company has enterprise queue management system “Queue Pro” running in different banks, telecom, Government & private service centers in different countries. To know more about the solution, readers can visit www.queue-pro.com.
Christina 10:32 AM on August 28, 2012
Marketing automation is like air travel ...
That bad!
-Christina
Jessica 11:02 AM on August 28, 2012
When is Hubspot going to partner with LinkedIn to create a LinkedIn app that allows the Hubspot blog to be integrated into your LinkedIn profile page?
Nate Goodman 11:06 AM on August 28, 2012
What analogies do I use to explain inbound marketing? Well, I explain that it's the opposite of hitting the customer with a spinning crane kick to the jaw. Instead of sicking the sales guy on the customer with a frontal assault, we explain that it's about building relationships with potential customers, and having them identify with us as not just a "email marketing company" but as a person. It's not about frequent marketing touches either, it's about developing shared experiences.
Barry Feldman 1:42 PM on August 28, 2012
Nice... and then there's: "Your website is the mousetrap and your content is the cheese." http://feldmancreative.com/2011/12/your-site-is-the-mousetrap-and-your-content-is-the-cheese/
Pedro Mizcci Majeau 1:49 PM on August 28, 2012
Congratulations Corey!!
Alex Stuart 2:02 PM on August 28, 2012
Do you really think Contact Us' - call to action on every page will be a bad idea? because my website I am using contact us tab on every page. Can anyone help me on this?
MySEOfootprint 11:59 PM on August 28, 2012
Very well written article with unique analogies to describe inbound linking! Crafted with intelligence and humor!
Nazmul Alam 3:50 AM on August 29, 2012
success in social marketing through blogging, digital marketing, SEO , events, webinar , sweepstakes are hard to come by. But we, online marketers are keen to access the source code of the successful player in social media and inbound marketing and come up with more creative ideas which are the key to win the heart of millions of people eventually. Thanks for this nice article & looking forward to get more from Corey!!
John Q. Public 9:52 AM on August 29, 2012
"Form (The Tag): They fill out their information so you know who they are.…"
Gotta' take issue with this one. At this point I and the marketer are at crossed purposes. They want my identity, I want my anonymity. Each person selling something thinks that they are unique, but they are not. How many times a day does someone hand you a receipt with some kind of survey link on it coupled with the speech about how you can win money or product by participating? This approach is not novel - neither is your web site. Every web site wants my information. It's pretty overwhelming. Imagine all of these entities burying you in emails or phone calls.
Focus on content/quality and view your site/sales effort/product from the point of view of a customer.
Mala 10:21 AM on August 29, 2012
This is a useful blog especially if you are an inbound marketer(read 'me')although people today understand parts of inbound marketing (read social media,specifically FB)it is hard to make them understand your job doesn't only pay for facebooking!I am glad I can now use the above mentioned anecdotes(read hugs) to explain what I do better! :)
stl real estate 11:58 AM on August 29, 2012
Great piece with lots of good points and explanations. I am directing this article to a few others as well as bookmarking it for myself as it serves as a nice point of reference.
grand rapids marketing companies 1:12 AM on August 30, 2012
The advertising agencies can help you to find out the marketing firm grand rapids that can develop and grow your organization brand.
SEO In Delhi 7:26 AM on August 30, 2012
very well written post.
James Everhart 8:38 PM on August 30, 2012
I don't understand why the image at the top is analogous to your blog. I understand the reference to Forrest Gump, but how does this relate? Or was it just meant to be catchy and I'm looking into it too deeply?