So I’ve been noticing  how  my so-called competitors talk about how big their social following is or the awards they have won and how wonderful they are.  Then when I go to their website, it’s all about them and their blog is all about how amazing they are with a  bunch of repetitive information that I have heard 10,000 times before from everyone.  The thing I noticed is while they may be generating a lot of social followers and a large so-called “community,” I wonder just how many leads they are generating.  As anyone in business knows, it’s not about how many “likes”, followers or subscribers you have – it’s about how many sales qualified leads you generate.

The Internet has fundamentally transformed the way people discover, share, connect and shop. 79% of adults use the internet (Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2010). It’s time for your company to transform the way you connect and communicate with your customers – and maybe even more importantly, with potential customers. Old-school techniques, including telemarketing, direct mail, TV, radio and print advertising (to reach customers), just don’t work anymore. Your customers shop and learn in a whole new way compared to just a few years ago, so marketers need to adapt or risk extinction.  78% of Internet users conduct product research online (Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2010). The average information seeker conducts dozens of searches per day , and- rather than listen to a sales rep, read a spam message, watch a TV ad, or fly to a trade show - most people find it easier to sit at their desks and find information online through Google. In order to take advantage of this new reality, marketers need to change the way they think about marketing – from the ground up.

If you are like many marketers, you look at the success that Apple has had and drool with envy. You just wish that the slightest slight made about your company draws the wrath of millions. Apple has been able to achieve what all companies yearn to accomplish: they have turned their customers into legions of fanatical evangelists.

I find myself asking this question many times.  As a dedicated inbound marketing professional, I often have questions like this, as well as is Pay-Per-Click inbound marketing?” I guess the real answer  depends on how you use it:  If you're doing email marketing correctly, it's inbound,  otherwise it’s outbound, and you risk spam and delivery issues. 

If you're a C-suite executive or business owner, chances are you've been talking to yourself a lot lately. The economy is much slower to rebound than we would like. Many of you have been hearing all the buzz about social media and this "thing" called "inbound marketing".  Business owners and executives who are considering adding inbound marketing to their marketing plan are wondering how much they will have to spend each month?

Sooner or later every company is going to have to figure out how to use Free or compete with Free, one way or another." Free is an business model that works extremely well for most types of businesses and websites. The idea of getting something for nothing is one that is incredibly attractive, because it perfectly fulfills the self-interest of even the most casual visitor or consumer.

That's right, FREE. Sound crazy? It's not - it's a proven strategy that some of the world's most successful companies use. The best case study for this would be Google. The search giant didn't offer any ads when it started, giving away its service for free - without any revenue in return. In fact, it continues to give away its search services- along with a whole host of tools - email service (the widely popular Gmail), calendars, document storage, and more - for FREE. Of course, now, Google makes billions of dollars each year in advertising revenue.

While there is a lot of strategy needed for both, the difference being a low-budget or low-talent SEO campaign will achieve low or negative ROI but is unlikely to cost losses beyond labour invested, whereas a sub-par PPC campaign can vaporize cash month after month. However, by doing both with an integrated strategy you can gain maximum intelligence and maximum return on investment.