How You Market, Determines Who Your Customers Will Be

Traditional methodology to attract customers is to utilize outgoing (Outbound) marketing techniques such as cold-calling, email blasts, traditional advertising, and lead generating firms, to name a few. These can and do still work, but in my opinion, for the average company they are not as effective. Today’s small businesses are stretched for resources – both human and capital. However, the real question here is; are you really reaching the prospects you want to reach? To me, ‘outbound’ is a shotgun approach to marketing. Blast far and wide in the hopes of hitting something tangible. And here is the rub, you may not like what you get (trust me on that one).

So, what is another, more effective approach to getting new customers? Inbound marketing is a healthier solution. It reminds me of fishing. Put on the right bait and attract the fish (prospects) you want. Examples of Inbound marketing include white papers, blogging, SEO, landing pages, social media and more.

Inbound marketing focuses on creating the right content that pulls people in to your business. These days, prospects are already searching for answers. They do it online by researching your industry, your competitors and your key product results. Trying to decide if they really need your service or product. So, the goal here is to have marketing content that speaks to all of these potential customers as they explore the scope and the various stages of the buying process. The cool part is, you purposefully direct your efforts to capture these interested prospects where they naturally are - online.

When you align the content, you publish with your potential customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic. Just like fishing. In essence, catch what you want to catch!