Understanding
Inbound
PART ONE:
Using Content Marketing
To Grow Your Business
Everyone has a story. How you tell it determines its impact.
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Allan Gates
Strategy Director and Partner. 20+ years in
marketing and PR agencies in Canada and
US. Also teaches Business at UNBSJ
Lise Hansen
Creative Director and Partner. Award-winning
creative professional. Developed brands and
content for many companies including Radian6
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Today
What is Inbound Marketing?
Take a deep dive in.
How is it relevant to your business?
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Goals
Understand Inbound Marketing.
Know how to apply it to your business.
Have the tools to get started.
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What is Inbound
Marketing?
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Inbound Marketing is:
A new way to market.
“Inbound” means attracting prospective
customers to your site or content.
Different from old “interruption model” of
advertising.
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It’s selling
without selling.
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The Stuff of InBound:
Blog posts
Videos
eBooks
Research reports
White papers
Infographics
Magazines
Opinion polls
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Inbound isn’t new.
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John Deere’s
“The Furrow”
magazine,
circa 1897
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Jell-O Recipe
Books circa
1900s
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Start With
Your Brand
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Choice
The strongest brands are about
taking away choice, leaving only
one option.
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Pop Quiz
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Tesla Removing Choice
Lots of players in electric
vehicle space
Which one dominates the
conversation?
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Differentiation
Tesla marketing ad spend: $0
Toyota marketing ad spend: $1.8 billion
Do you want a Tesla or a Camry?
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Your Brand and Inbound
What makes your company different and special?
What is the emotional response you want to create in
your customers? (How do you help them?)
What are your values?
What is the tone of your communication?
What does your company stand for?
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Your Brand and Inbound
What is the visual language of your brand?
Beyond a logo, do you have a colour palette,
fonts, image treatment etc.
It’s important to be consistent in the look & feel of
all your content - this is key to building the brand.
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What brands do you love? Why?
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Why Inbound Works
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Interruption Marketing
Old school marketing was premised on interruption.
An ad was inserted in the content you wanted to
consume - a TV spot, magazine ad, ad on the radio etc.
The price of consuming the content was being pushed the ad.
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Abundance of Attention
That worked reasonably well pre-Web 2.0 because there
was an abundance of attention and a scarcity of content
Most people had relatively limited media choices - cable
TV, print magazines and newspapers.
Content was generally consumed synchronously.
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76 million people watched
the Seinfeld finale in 1998
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Now you can only get that kind of same-moment
audience in major sports events or award shows
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Scarcity of Attention
Abundance of content and scarcity of attention
Anyone with an Internet connection or a smartphone
can access an almost unlimited amount of content
Billions of people use social media networks to create
and share content
Content is consumed asynchronously (Social media,
Netflix, YouTube, Podcasts etc)
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How does more
content help?
Good content can find an audience
Niche audiences predominate
Shorter attention spans
Generation of “infovores”
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Go where the puck
is going to be.
BonfireStories.ca / Huddle.Today
No Barriers
Before you needed a newspaper, radio station or
TV station to reach a mass audience
Now you can reach almost anyone anywhere
The cost of doing this is minimal (but it’s not free more on that later…)
You can earn attention - the most valuable
commodity in today’s world
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For New Brunswick Businesses
Inbound gives broader reach
Inbound can engage prospects you might not
otherwise connect with
Inbound helps address the geographic challenge
Inbound is relatively cheaper than advertising or
traditional marketing
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Questions?
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