Today we live in a data-driven world. Even the smallest business builds its own dashboards trying to visualize and watch the most important KPIs. We are collecting data, chasing measures and developing metrics trying to replace the "hunches and guess" daily dilemma with a data-driven decision. We are trying to develop a new and more reliable business awareness.
As marketing is not an exception, the data said its word: The old marketing school best practices became far from the best, now they are fundamentally broken. Trade shows, e-mail blasts, and advertisements just aren't that effective anymore. People aren't responding to these interruptive tactics and had gotten really good at blocking them out (what about your AdBlocker?).
It became clear that: people in the digital, crowd and cruel world are seeking value more than ever. They want to be helped not interrupted by marketers or harassed by salespeople. They appreciate the well-written content and spread the word about the Article/Blog they just read; Even they love to turn-off the AdBlocker to give something back. We still remember, read and spread the word about: (@andrewchen) "Growth Hacker is the new VP Marketing".
The concept of Inbound Marketing was shaped by (@bhalligan) and (@dharmesh): "We called the traditional, interruptive methods “outbound marketing,” because they were fundamentally about pushing a message out, and started calling the new way “inbound marketing.” Inbound was about pulling people in by sharing relevant information, creating useful content, and generally being helpful."
In case you aren't familiar with the concept of Inbound Marketing. It is all about the added value: being helpful, not annoying! Nothing to do with the lousy unrelated emails that blow your Inbox or the untailored blustery online advertisement campaigns. Something that the old-fashioned SEO gurus and blackhat generating-leads hackers wouldn't be so happy with. As Inbound Marketing relay heavily on the Content Marketing best practices to generate more leads for your sales team or increase your website visitors. So the only way to Fuel Growth your online business is to generate content that Teaches, Entertains and Inspires.
As Victor Hugo said: "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come." It is the Inbound Marketing era. The inbound movement now extends well beyond the four walls of small startups and micro-business; Now it is adopted by the big players. As it secured an Agile cure for the old mismatch between how organizations are marketing and selling their offerings and the way that people actually want to shop and buy.
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