I recently returned from a conference of 14,000 inbound marketing professionals in Boston, MA. Four days of learning about the future of marketing and how inbound is changing the game. The conference was hosted by HubSpot, an inbound marketing software that we use here at Red Chair Communications (RCC).
What is inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is the act of bringing prospects to you instead of actively pursuing them by running ads and cold calling.
Inbound is done by creating relevant and valuable content that would benefit a potential customer, whether they work with you or not. You become a trusted source through inbound marketing by providing expertise that real organizations can use to advance and grow.
I attended sessions on topics like “Finding your opportunity audience” and “The power of data” as well as keynotes from Seth Godin, Chelsea Clinton and Aziz Ansari, but the one session that really hit home with me was, “11.5 steps to grow your agency without breaking.”
This session was all about what we, as marketing professionals, can do to grow our own client base, offer the best services to our current clients (i.e. inbound marketing) and make sure that we have well-rounded talent in-house.
The second step in the 11.5 steps that were given, was to “go all in on inbound.” This included hiring a marketing professional who knows the ropes of inbound. Someone who has experience with developing content for many different industries, promoting content through social media, paid ads and even email. Someone who knows how to find the audience that will benefit most from reading our content and of course, someone who knows how to use the inbound marketing software, HubSpot.
HubSpot is a software that allows marketers to promote content, monitor social media, host blogs and generate leads (among other things). RCC has the capacity to offer Inbound as a service to our current and prospective clients by using HubSpot to generate, track and report on this information, helping our clients grow with content marketing.
As a marketing agency grows and adapts to the ever changing industry, inbound experience should be a top of mind skill when reviewing potential candidates, regardless of the software they use (although we are partial to HubSpot here at RCC). After all, it was the second step in a session that was conducted by an agency that has grown leaps and bounds in only the last five years, simply by going all in on inbound.
So as teams grow and services are expanded, look to the future of marketing and go all in on inbound. You won’t be disappointed.
Interested in inbound? {{cta('9abf61df-2bfa-4820-932b-854aa0d9aff6')}}
