Jody Raines Thoughts on Inbound Marketing

There is a change in the way we shop for 'things', whether it's a new car, or a pair of shoes, more and more we are saving time (and gas) and shopping on the Internet.

If you are like me, Jody Raines, you do a ton of shopping online.  With conveniences like Amazon Prime (Free 2 Day shipping - Yippee!) I can order and be assured that in a couple of days I will have a package at my door.

Plus, it saves me a ton of time.  Hard to find items are no longer hard to find.  Case in point, I needed a part for my RV... and I called a Camping World, which is roughly thirty miles from my house. They assured me they had the part in stock.  I drove to the store, and guess what?  They made a mistake!  So I wasted gas and time trying to procure the item.   What did I do?  I went online on Amazon and found the part and ordered it, with free 2 day delivery and had it in hand a couple days later.  The dullards at Camping World wanted to "special order" the part for me and it may come to the store in two weeks?  I'd still have to go to the store to pick it up.  No thanks - I have little confidence they even know what part to order.

So what does this mean for you and your business?  It means that you need to be online.  Not only do you need a website, but you need a website that can be indexed by search engine and can be discovered by someone searching for what you offer.

I've been a Hubspot partner (Jody Raines, WebMarCom) for quite a while and they use the term "Inbound Marketing" to describe a process that includes optimizing your website for searches.  They suggest that there are 4 stages of inbound marketing:

• Attract
• Convert
• Close
• Delight

I won't argue their breakdown except to say there are many components that go into these 4 stages that are not easily understood in a one or two day certification program. These are lessons that are learned in live and by experience, and as an old school traditional marketer, I have a lot of both.  I believe the Internet is a bit of the Wild West, with my contemporaries who are running their business inclined to turn their marketing over to a younger breed of marketers who grew up with smart phones and who have Pinterest and Instagram in their DNA.  That's fine.  I love Social Media.  I also recognize that none of it does any good if you create just for the sake of creation.

One of my friends who is a Psychiatrist who wrote an excellent book about the Y Generation hired a person to handle her social media for her.  She didn't have a big budget, and she figures its "free" advertising so how bad could this person be?

It was bad.

Instead of staying on topic and interracting with appropriate influencers, what she discovered was that her account was essentially hijacked and spouting the designated agreed upon number of posts that had very little to do with what she does.  In fact, they were commercial posts that were related to the travel industry!  Huh?   There were also a couple of political statements that were inconsistant with my friend's philosophy and also dangerous from a client perspective understanding what she does.

Why do I share this with you?   Because I hope you will be smart, and look for someone who understands your business, appreciates your goals, and who actually adds value to the converstation.  Someone who challenges your business model and who comes up with suggestions to improve and to move the ball forward.

Don't be a victim of "inbound pablum".   Be critical.  Be observant.  And be aware that even if social media is "free" thare is a price for bad impressions.

Jody Raines, WebMarCom is a marketing professional based in Southern New Jersey. Jody Raines is President of WebMarCom, and inbound marketing agency and co-hosts TechWebCast, the #1 Tech Webcast in Australia.  She also co-hosts SMA, Social Media Addicts with Seth Goldstein and Howard Yermish, available on iTunes.