In-bound Marketing and Content Marketing-Synonymous?

OK, so I am going to admit something that I may not normally admit. Why? I need your help. You see, I’m a bit confused. It started the other day when a colleague asked me, “What is the difference between content marketing and inbound marketing?” After a moment or two of pause, I simply said, great question, let me get back to you.

It was the first time that I really had considered the question and these two terms together. I hear them and see them used all the time. We even just hosted our Twitter #B2Bbookclub on Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs (The New Rules of Social Media) with Dharmesh Shah. But I still felt unsure how to respond appropriately to the question. So I set out to find some data to clarify my understanding.

The first place I turned was Wikipedia. Here are the definitions as found on Wikipedia:

Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.

Inbound marketing and its opposite outbound marketing have various meanings depending on the context. One pair of definitions are:

Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin’s idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers “publish their way in” (via blogs etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to “buy their way in” (via paid advertisements). Next best action marketing can also be applied.

Traditional marketing (outbound marketing) is where companies focus on finding customers by advertising. This sense is related to intrusion marketing and Godin’s term interruption marketing.

Both definitions specifically state that content marketing and inbound marketing are “in contrast” to traditional or outbound marketing methods. So on the surface when I looked at these two definitions, I was learning toward an answer of yes, they are synonyms.

Click here to link to the rest of the story at BtoBblogger>>>>click here.

Professor Content says, advertising, marketing, public relations are all implemented techniques and methodologies which get measured then adjusted leading to sales.

Is In-Bound marketing not a part of marketing which then leads to leads and finally to sales?

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, brand optimization, branding, BTOBblogger, BtoBblogger dot com, content, Content Marketing, content optimization, creative services, custom publishing, eVid Magazine, marketing, re-branding, re-content, re-contenting, social media, social networking, stella, stella pop, stellapop, stellas pop factory, web 2.0, yostella

Posted by Shannon Sweetser

The following is a guest post from Jack Napoli, who has been a member of the HubSpot community for over 3 years. With 31 years in High Tech and 26 years in Direct Sales, Customer Care & Sales Development, Jack has a lot of experience getting his messages through the clutter. He’s now a semi-retired entrepreneur and acronym enthusiast focused on Sales Education, Coaching, and Consulting. You can contact him at jack.napoli@cox.net.

As Kevin Kelly, internet pop icon and co-founder of Wired magazine said in the New Rules for the New Economy, “the only factor becoming scarce in a world of abundance is human attention.”

In this internet and media driven world we live in, we all have the same limitations when it comes to retaining information. Acronyms help your clients manage the abundance of information about you, your products, and services. They cut through the noise and communicate who you are and what you do in the most memorable fashion.

Use can use acronyms to:

•    sell to potential clients.
•    expand your footprint with existing customers.
•    attract investors.
•    educate sales & marketing people.
•    communicate with your executive teams.

I, like most people, find that retaining large amounts of information can be difficult. Information is easier to recall when written and spoken communications are grouped into nuggets of distinction. I’m an acronym lover and have been using acronyms for as long as I can remember. They are a learning tool that I’ve used throughout my schooling and my career. I swear, if not for acronyms, there would be no diplomas at any level. Now, I pass on the secret to creating lasting acronyms to you.

Create Remarkable Acronyms Using the 4 R’s

To become remarkable, I believe an acronym needs to have the characteristics of the 4 R’s:

Retain – Is your message simplified so your audience can retain it?
Recall – Can the audience recall your message in 2 minutes, 2 hours, 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 martinis later?
Repeat – Can they repeat it?
Research – If they cannot do the above, do they at least know what the acronym is so they can research why you are relevant in their world?

Give Your Acronym Meaning, Stickiness and Legs using SIMPLE

Here to link to the full article at HubSpot>>>>click

Professor Content says, Does anyone have a good spot remover? I’ve got this nasty spot on my Hub.

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, brand optimization, branding, content, Content Marketing, content optimization, creative services, custom publishing, eVid Magazine, grader dot com, grader.com, HubSpot, HubSpot blog, marketing, re-branding, re-content, re-contenting, social media, social networking, stella, stella pop, stellapop, stellas pop factory, web 2.0, yostella

Web 2.0 - Social Media

For Social Media to be strategic, there must be an integrated marketing plan in place that guides our efforts in Social Media so that time and money is not wasted.

Here are the facets of our Social Media Marketing Campaign services to ensure your business gets the optimum benefits:

Social Media Marketing Activation

A Social Media Campaign (SMC) begins with understanding your goals and choosing the strategic network of target distribution and delivery points that become your network infrastructure of social media solutions working together for your successful Internet presence.

No two solutions are the same because each one must target your ideal customer. Your business, your customers, your B2B network, your vendors, your public. We research and set your social media to be received by the most promising audiences.

Each audience influences the tools and resources to be selected to become your targeted social media network. The role of your Social Media Specialist (SMS) will be to analyze your business to strategically determine the best tools to support your SMC.

Social Media Marketing Orchestration

Someone must be the conductor of your social media orchestra – guiding it according to an integrated strategy. Think of your Social Media Campaign as an orchestra of different instruments:
• Blogs
• Web 2 friendy-building sites
• Micro blogs (Twitter)
• Distributors and Syndicators

Like a brass, wind and percussion section of an orchestra, your social media campaign will require management of a number of different “instruments” in your social media campaign (SMC). Your Social Media Specialist will be the conductor knows how to perfectly synchronize each player to produce the best-finished results.

Social Media Marketing Optimization

Your verbiage is the core content that people will read and searches will find. Thus, to optimize your copy for the best-finished results your SMS will skillfully write your copy from a marketing perspective to insure an optimal use of keywords and hyperlinks back to your main web site.

All keywords are not of equal value to you and your Social Media needs to focus first on the primary ones to have the largest positive effect.

Social Media Optimization is about taking advantage of the “share-ability” inherently built into Social Media networks to get your business’ products, services and brand “out there” for maximum effect. Covenant Designs’ Social Media Specialist (SMS) will establish trackback, ping, permalinks and other RSS feeds to insure maximum portability of every post.

Search Engine Placement

Armed with your rich, hyperlinked copy posted to your blog, backed by the full distribution through the blog-world, will insure higher ranking positioning on search results in Google and Yahoo. Our strategic Pay Per Click services (PPC) will further improve your business’ visibility and marketing ROI.

Social Media Positioning

Strategic timing and ad positioning in specific target markets with high local impact will insure your investment in a coordinated social media campaign will result in measurable results.

Technorati Tags: advertising, brand, brand optimization, branding, content, Content Marketing, content optimization, creative services, custom publishing, eVid Magazine, marketing, re-branding, re-content, re-contenting, social media, social networking, stella, stella pop, stellapop, stellas pop factory, web 2.0, yostella