But here's what we found: The most effective and savvy inbound marketers study industry trends and think ahead. The authors of these inbound marketing blogs didn't need a crystal ball to leverage what they learned from trend-tracking.
Clearly, their takes on the direction of content, lead generation, social media and other inbound marketing tactics were way ahead of their time. Check them out!
It’s no secret that inbound links can boost traffic to your website. However, if you farm links, use automated link-building tools or use other worthless tactics to get backlinks, it’s going to come back to bite you in the butt.
When you get on the algorithm’s crap list, Google doesn't react nicely. They’ll lay a smack-down on you so hard, your site will be left festering in search engine obscurity, never to be clicked on again.
The lesson here. Using shortcuts to get inbound links is not worth the potential backlash of being caught. The author of this Sales Lion blog post saw the steep penalties coming long before he posted about the dangers of bogus links. For those who want to know how to earn legitimate links, the writer of "How to Build Links to Your Website..." shares his secrets to success.
When other marketers were clinging to the “back-in-the-day” style of doing things, this guy was clearly thinking ahead about lead nurturing. He recognized that the days of cornering clients and shoving products in their faces were numbered.
Most people who show interest in products or services don’t necessarily want to buy them right then. But who’s to say they won’t decide to purchase them six months, or even a year from now. If you chase potential customers off with aggressive selling tactics, you’ll never know what could have been.
If you’re not already using lead nurturing to win buyers over, what are you waiting on? This blog takes you through the steps of what the author calls the “play-it-cool-strategy” to help you learn to convert casual browsers into paying customers.
Personal branding isn't just for celebrities anymore. Marketers and other professionals who want to land more lucrative jobs, gain industry recognition and improve networking opportunities have to embrace the concept and be willing to put effort into the process.
The idea of personal branding is not mainstream yet. There are still plenty of professionals who refuse to pull their heads out of the mud to see the potential benefits to their careers. It’s okay though. The author of this Hubspot post is ahead of the game and makes no apologies about peddling his personal brand to others.
Until recently, the idea of using social media, blogs, online videos, and infographics to raise funds for a charity was questionable and was seen as slimy. But ask yourself this first: What’s worse? Leveraging the power of social media so you can continue helping others or watching your charity go down in flames because the organization went broke?
Today’s generation of givers are more interactive and they want to feel connected to the nonprofits they donate to. This Hubspot post touches base on just that. It explains how charities can rake in donations by getting creative with their inbound marketing tactics.
From hosting contests to telling a story to having conversations with donors, this author lays out all the best social media marketing tactics for charitable organizations that want to thrive.
Content is like bait in the inbound marketing world. If your articles are a hot mess, visitors will take one look at them and click right on by. Once they leave, they aren't going to waste their time coming back.
Over the past year, peoples’ expectations for acceptable content has changed. No longer are they satisfied with articles that provide surface-level information on a topic, they want content that’s fleshed out and filled with information they can use. And since there are only so many hours in the day, producing this kind of content can prove challenging.
Evidently, the author of this inbound marketing blog post on Hubspot saw the shift coming and felt inclined to help others overcome the dilemma of producing quick, quality content. From idea generation to research to writing, the author covers his go-to method for creating in-depth content that will captivate your audience and grab the attention of search algorithms (all in less than two hours).
Although landing pages have been around for years, people still don’t get why they are important for turning visitors into buyers. They feel like as long as they have a decent website, things will work out in their favor. While you may be able to capture leads and convert customers with a website, it’s not the best use of your resources.
The author of this Kissmetrics post wasn’t waiting on the business world to embrace landing pages before he dove right into providing information to his readers. This informative inbound marketing blog post breaks down the seven types of landing pages and how each one can help make the most of your inbound marketing strategy.
There’s no doubt that social media can boost traffic and generate sales, but it only works if you do it right. You may not know it yet, but some of the tactics you’re using on your social media sites are heading the way of the dinosaur.
These platforms are still evolving, as is the way people respond to the marketing tactics used on them. As time goes by, it becomes increasingly clear that no matter what you are selling, some strategies are simply a waste of time.
The author of “7 Obsolete Social Media Tactics...” goes into detail about why methods such as infrequent posting, selling directly to your audience, trying to pull a fast one on your followers and being self-promotional are obsolete.
Inbound marketing relies heavily on the appropriate use of social media. “Appropriate” being the operative word. You can post on Instagram and Twitter until your face turns purple, but if you haven't established any clear goals for marketing on these mediums, it won’t do you much good.
You set goals for every other part of your business, why not for social media marketing? While the concept is still a relatively new one, this inbound marketing post on Buffer is on the cutting edge of how social media advertising is evolving.
The article points out the rewards your business can reap when you set goals using the four pillars of growth: metrics, hypothesis, experiment and act. It goes on to explain how easily you can apply these four pillars to your future business goals.
What blog posts did you find were ahead of their time? Let us know in the comments below!