Inbound marketing – slow and steady wins the race!

When I first started out on my journey of inbound marketing, nine months ago, to raise awareness of the Marketing Sense brand and generate leads – blogging, publishing and posting to social, I had some great ‘theory’ behind me.

Well-honed marketing skills I have, but inbound marketing was a whole new realm for me.

When I started to really ‘get into’ the digital space, some 3 years ago, I pretty much ate, slept and drank digital to the point where I was starting to feel like an automaton, to which I can conclude – too much cyber time is not wholly enriching, virtual is just that; virtual!

My family would probably refer to this as the ‘three coffees’s a day’ phase!

Suffice to say, I am reading, watching and researching less on this topic every day (stay tuned to find out what I am onto next).

I might bookmark 5-6 pieces of content on the subject of inbound and content marketing every week, but I find that after a quick skim read, the information is now pretty much repeating what I have already read, it’s just on a different site you know!

Don’t get me wrong, I am well read, but as for perfecting the ‘art of inbound,’ there are still learning’s to be made every day!

As I am sure you know yourself, continuous learning is a necessity. Through trial and error, I have been able to determine what is effective and where the focus needs to be, improving as I go.

So by now you are probably thinking…so what did you learn then?

Too much to detail here, but I can pass on a key learning.

‘The Big Take Out!’

My big ‘take out’ then, for you, from all this learning and implementing of inbound marketing is this.

Inbound marketing moves at a tortoise-like pace.  You all know the story of the ‘Tortoise and the Hare’ right? Slow and steady wins the race?

Before the Beatles became an overnight success, they had performed over 1,200 live shows.

James Dyson produced 5,126 vacuum cleaner prototypes that were not popular before creating the one he is now famous for.

Viral content is a bit of a myth, most so called viral campaigns are ‘seeded,’ with people employed to post content.

Genuine content sharing happens, as does true virality, but in many cases, your followers will just ‘lurk,’ this is actually ‘official’ digital marketing speak – a lurker observes, but does not actively participate, and this accounts for about 90% of people.

Your followers, (eek!!!  I just don’t like that word), may not like, re-tweet or share at first, but don’t think that they aren’t engaging with your content.  If you don’t have marketing automation, you can get a really good picture of what’s going on through your Google analytics and many social platforms such as LinkedIn and YouTube show you the number of ‘views.’

Also, move away from the screen, yes you – drop the mouse!!

The internet has given us ways to navigate around uncomfortable networking as connecting and reaching out to new people is much less intimidating when we’re sitting behind a screen.

But face-to-face networking is still an extremely valuable part of your overall growth strategy.

I average 2-3 ‘in-person’ networking events per month, and for the last few months someone has recognised me from the blogosphere –true story! I get like a puzzled look when I introduce myself and then an ‘aaah yes I have seen you on LinkedIn !’ or something similar. And that is always nice.

So if you see someone at an event, whose blog you have read, or post you have liked – tell them!