Attract, engage, and delight customers online

Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated: Attract, Engage, and Delight Customers Online is a comprehensive guide to increasing online visibility and engagement. Written by top marketing and startup bloggers, the book contains the latest information about customer behavior and preferred digital experiences. From the latest insights on lead nurturing and visual marketing to advice on producing remarkable content by building tools, readers will gain the information they need to transform their marketing online.

With outbound marketing methods becoming less effective, the time to embrace inbound marketing is now. Cold calling, e-mail blasts, and direct mail are turning consumers off to an ever-greater extent, so consumers are increasingly doing research online to choose companies and products that meet their needs. Inbound Marketing recognizes these behavioral changes as opportunities, and explains how marketers can make the most of this shift online. This not only addresses turning strangers into website visitors, but explains how best to convert those visitors to leads, and to nurture those leads to the point of becoming delighted customers.

Gain the insight that can increase marketing value with topics like:

• Inbound marketing - strategy, reputation, and tracking progress
• Visibility - getting found, and why content matters
• Converting customers - turning prospects into leads and leads into customers
• Better decisions - picking people, agencies, and campaigns

The book also contains essential tools and resources that help build an effective marketing strategy, and tips for organizations of all sizes looking to build a reputation. When consumer behaviors change, marketing must change with them. The fully revised and updated edition of Inbound Marketing is a complete guide to attracting, engaging, and delighting customers online.

BRIAN HALLIGAN is cofounder & CEO of HubSpot, an inbound marketing and sales software company that helps businesses transform how they get found and grow online. Brian also teaches Entrepreneurial Product Development and Marketing as a Senior Lecturer at MIT. Connect with Brian on Twitter @bhalligan.

DHARMESH SHAH is cofounder & CTO of HubSpot and an angel investor in over 50 technology startups. Dharmesh also authors OnStartups.com, a popular startup blog with over 400,000 members in its community, and is a frequent speaker on the topic of startups and marketing. Connect with Dharmesh on Twitter @dharmesh.

With outbound marketing methods becoming less effective, the time to embrace inbound marketing is now. Cold calling, e-mail blasts, and direct mail are turning consumers off to an ever-greater extent, so consumers are increasingly doing research online to choose companies and products that meet their needs. Inbound Marketing recognizes these behavioral changes as opportunities, and explains how marketers can make the most of this shift online. This not only addresses turning strangers into website visitors, but explains how best to convert those visitors to leads, and to nurture those leads to the point of becoming delighted customers.

Gain the insight that can increase marketing value with topics like:

• Inbound marketing strategy, reputation, and tracking progress
• Visibility getting found, and why content matters
• Converting customers turning prospects into leads and leads into customers
• Better decisions picking people, agencies, and campaigns

The book also contains essential tools and resources that help build an effective marketing strategy, and tips for organizations of all sizes looking to build a reputation. When consumer behaviors change, marketing must change with them. The fully revised and updated edition of Inbound Marketing is a complete guide to attracting, engaging, and delighting customers online.

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii

Part I Inbound Marketing 1

Chapter 1 Shopping Has Changed . . . Has Your Marketing? 3

Who Moved My Customers? 6

Inbound in Action: Barack Obama for President 6

To Do 8

Chapter 2 Is Your Website a Marketing Hub? 9

Megaphone versus Hub 9

It's Not What You Say-It's What Others Say About You 10

Does Your Website Have a Pulse? 10

Your Mother's Impressed, But . . . 11

Tracking Your Progress 13

Inbound in Action: 37Signals 14

To Do 15

Chapter 3 Are You Worthy? 17

Creating a Remarkable Strategy 17

Tracking Your Progress 19

Inbound in Action: The Grateful Dead 19

To Do 20

Part II Get Found By Prospects 21

Chapter 4 Create Remarkable Content 23

Building a Content Machine 23

Variety is the Spice of Life 24

You Gotta Give to Get 24

Moving Beyond the Width of Your Wallet 25

Tracking Your Progress 25

Inbound in Action: Wikipedia 26

To Do 27

Chapter 5 Get Found in the Blogosphere 29

Getting Your Blog Started Right 30

Authoring Effective Articles 30

Help Google Help You 32

Making Your Articles Infectious 33

Give Your Articles a Push 34

Starting Conversations with Comments 35

Why Blogs Sometimes Fail 36

The Gift That Keeps on Giving 36

Consuming Content with RSS 37

Subscribe to Relevant Industry Blogs 37

Contribute to the Conversation 38

Tracking Your Progress 39

Inbound in Action: Whole Foods 40

To Do 43

Chapter 6 Get Found in Google 45

Paid versus Free 45

A (Brief) Introduction to How Google Works 48

Picking the Perfect Keywords 50

On-Page SEO: Doing the Easy Stuff First 53

Off-Page SEO: The Power of Inbound Links 58

Black Hat SEO: How to Get Your Site Banned by Google 61

The Dangers of PPC 63

Tracking Your Progress 64

Inbound in Action: LinkedIn "Elite" 65

To Do 66

Chapter 7 Get Found in Social Media 67

Creating an Effective Online Profile 67

Getting Fans on Facebook 69

Creating Connections on LinkedIn 73

Gathering Followers on Twitter 77

Gaining Reach from Google+ 80

Being Discovered with StumbleUpon 82

Getting Found on YouTube 84

Tracking Your Progress 86

Inbound in Action: FreshBooks 87

To Do 89

Chapter 8 Visual Content 91

SlideShare 92

Visual.ly 92

Pinterest 93

Instagram 94

Snapchat 95

Vine 96

Chapter 9 Software and Tools as Content 99

Writing Code Instead of Text 100

Replace Humans with Machines 101

Provide a Next Step 102

Kill Bad Tools Quickly 102

Tools Don't Market Themselves 103

Inbound in Action: Wealthfront 104

To Do 105

Part III Converting Customers 107

Chapter 10 Convert Visitors into Leads 109

Compelling Calls-to-Action 110

Mistakes to Avoid 113

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