SEO Marketing in the New Millennium - What Every Business Owner Must Know to Compete in Today's Market
If you're still using older marketing methods to get your business in front of your target market offline or even online, you're losing valuable opportunities to stand out from your competition. And what's worse, investing your business dollars in outdated marketing techniques will not only cost you potential customers, but also a huge chunk of your budget, misdirected to old school’ methods that are simply no longer as effective as they used to be. SEO marketing is one of many newer marketing methods that have been proven to be more efficient, more effective and more affordable.
Case in point: Outbound vs. Inbound Marketing
Outbound marketing has long been considered a solid form of business advertisement (40 year track record), with the primary focus of grabbing the consumer’s attention and coercing them to take action. Outbound marketing employs such strategies as eye-catching banner advertisements, commercial interruptions and e-mail promotions.
These tactics don’t cut it with today’s consumer, and here’s why:
- Outbound marketing relies on interruption to get the attention of potential customers. With an already-overwhelming inundation of advertisements saturating the web and e-mail, consumers have far less patience for constant marketing being shoved in their faces.
- Due to the sheer quantity of marketing material today’s consumers are being exposed to, they have largely learned to ‘tune out’ and disregard anything that isn’t relevant to their immediate trains of thought.
- With current technology, it’s easier than ever for consumers to filter out unwanted interruptions with tools such as spam filters and ad blockers
Inbound marketing is by contrast a far more courteous – and effective – means of drawing attention to your business. Rather than relying on intrusive interruptions, inbound marketing & SEO marketing instead, employs permission-based techniques that provide information and value, which is then found by consumers who actually want the information you have to offer. This goal is accomplished by offering frequently-updated and high-quality content, SEO marketing, blogging, social networking and other methods that are essentially low-cost in comparison to the pricey promotional budget needed to support the less-effective outbound marketing tactics of the past.
Why is inbound marketing such a powerful tool for your business?
- When you give consumers what they want, (i.e., valuable information that is usually free of charge), they’re far more likely to pay attention to what you’re offering.
- By providing free and relevant content on a regular basis, you are positioning yourself as an expert in your industry and building a level of trust + likeability with the public. As a result, your visitors are more qualified prospects, and your SEO marketing efforts as well as your conversion rates show significant increases across the board.
- Just as technology is being used to filter outbound marketing tactics, it can be of great benefit for those business owners utilizing inbound marketing methods that include SEO marketing. If your prospects and customers know, like and trust you, they have the ability at their fingertips to tell hundreds – even thousands – of other potential customers about your business with just a few clicks of a mouse. This type of free and powerful advertising can save you countless marketing dollars.
Knowing what we do now about SEO marketing (inbound) vs. outbound marketing techniques, it’s only logical that inbound methods are hands-down the preferred means of politely and effectively requesting consumers’ attention, with far greater response and conversion rates, at a comparatively lower overall cost ratio. It doesn’t make sense not to take advantage of such powerful business resources.
Your leads and prospects are more savvy than ever, and no longer easily coerced by aggressive interruptions and marketing gimmicks. The bottom line: provide your target market with mass quantities of free, relevant and valuable information, and make your business visible on search engine listings via SEO marketing. Your customers will not only come to you, they’ll be far more likely to buy what you’re selling!
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