Inbound Marketing is the new black; everyone seems to be talking about it. Is it just more smoke and mirrors like search engine optimization was before Google made content king? Well, if you're reading this - YES - it works!
I'm actually sitting at a conference in Inbound Marketing right now sponsored by HubSpot - and 14,000 other people are here with me. If this was just a fad - we're all fooled.
Of course a software system who's entire purpose is Inbound Marketing is probably going to sell it hard - but beyond all the fanfare of this conference, I know Inbound Marketing really works!
First - if you're reading this, then one of the tenants of Inbound Marketing DOES work: attracting website traffic through blogging and social media. That's great and all, but for me, the proof is in the pudding.
A college friend of mine who works at HubSpot reached out to me 3 years ago, and I blew him and the methodology off. I wasn't sold, and I didn't feel like i could afford the software or time to do it.
Fast forward 3 years - I was hitting a sales wall. As a growing company I needed a way to get more leads while being more efficient at doing it. I finally decided to take a chance on HubSpot, which is NOT cheap. In addition to the platform, I decided that if I wanted results, I would have to follow the Inbound methodology.
I became more active on social media, I started forcing myself to blog on relevant content my potential clients would want, I made conversions easier through better calls-to-action on our website and built some eBooks to create value for prospects to give me their contact information. I did everything I was supposed to do.
I can't think of better results - and the leads keep flowing in at a frequency I never had before. The results are so good that I've conned four clients into adopting Inbound Marketing on HubSpot. We're just starting to launch their new sites now, but I hope to be writing about their results in four months.
Take it from a skeptic, Inbound Marketing really works.