INBOUND ACCELERATOR

There are many reasons a business blog should be a part of your content marketing strategy. Business blogs improve your website’s SEO and search rankings. They establish authority and thought leadership in your industry. Blogging provides opportunities to engage with readers and can be used in conjunction with other marketing strategies for lead generation. (More on why you should, or shouldn’t, use a business blog: 7 Reasons You Shouldn’t Have a Business Blog.)

As I recently reviewed our website, blog and lead generation metrics, it was interesting to note how most of our most popular downloads from the Inbound Marketing Learning Library are templates. It’s easy to see that our readers are looking for tools that can make their marketing and PR tasks simpler, and I’m glad we are able to provide those tools.

If you have been following my 15 Lessons From 15 Years series of blog posts (this is post #11), you may remember that when I discussed the key steps to successful marketing in the healthcare IT arena, I said that integrating PR and marketing was essential.

In fact, it is so important for all industries, not just that one, that I felt I needed to revisit the concept and walk you through the steps we follow to ensure that all communications create a cohesive message and focus on reaching the same corporate goals.

In my last two articles in this series of lessons in marketing, I’ve talked about the importance of trust when dealing with finances and money, and the importance of understanding the science when marketing in the life sciences industry. Healthcare IT is another field in which decisions are made slowly, based on data and authority.

Are you looking for a way to generate qualified leads that doesn’t involve cold calls, mass mailings (digital or print), or a heavy investment in paid advertising? Maybe a strategy that will not only provide leads, but also establish your company as a thought leader in your industry and a trusted source of information for current customers and prospects alike?

That is what inbound marketing can do. And often for a lower cost-per-lead than traditional outbound marketing. So, what do you need to do to create your first inbound marketing campaign?

We know that from an environmental standpoint, single-use items are falling quickly out of fashion, whether plastic straws, plastic shopping bags or foam coffee cups, the push is to replace those “one and done” items with more lasting, reusable alternatives.

Did you know you can do the same thing with your marketing content? Why create single-use material when you can put it to work again and again, in a new format, to reduce your cost of content creation?

The core principle behind inbound marketing for B2B brands — whether in healthcare, technology, software or others — is that the content created is designed to have value to prospects and customers. It is not strictly focused on selling something, but rather on teaching or reaching leads in a way that shows how they can best use your product or service to improve their own bottom line.

If you take time to read through the history of the Inbound Accelerator, you’ll see, if the name didn’t already give it away, that at JONES we are true proponents of inbound marketing. We believe in providing the information prospects are seeking, when and where they want to access it, not in blasting it at them through random mass email marketing or untested paid online marketing.

If you were to write a Christmas wish list for your marketing department, what would it include?

I envision mine as a “12 Days of Christmas” style countdown, that combines to create a fantastic inbound marketing campaign, all in one neat package and ready to go.

It’s December 5 - how many times have you heard your favorite (or most-hated) holiday song?

While a partridge in a pear tree sounds romantic as a gift, and I don’t know of many people who would turn down five gold rings, some of other gifts bestowed in those infamous 12 days are more than little over-the-top.