Inbound Web Design

• Jacqueline Carly
• Christopher S. Penn
• Brian Clark

Profile: When earning your spot among the short list of the very best inbound marketers, going beyond the realm of simply creating posts in your underware is probably a nessecity. Chris Brogan's contributions, both in- and outside of blogging, have made him a go to communicator with large-scale businesses, many of which who call on him as a sounding board to assure their digital media strategy is top notch. Brogan is the CEO and President of Human Business Works, a network which has garnered thousands of fans for its informative content on online marketing and business strategy. Brogan is also co-founder of PodCamp, which describes itself as "the new media community unconference."

If you’re over 30, you probably remember the film Back to the Future, starring Michael J. Fox. For the rest of you who have not yet had the privilege, Fox’s character, Marty McFly, gets sent back in time to the 1950’s in order to change the course of history and save his friend Doc. While there, Marty interacts with the younger version of his parents and experiences the differences between how 1950’s America worked compared to 1985 (the 80’s probably seem like the 1950’s to some of you…yikes, I’m getting old).

Who am I kidding…you’ve seen Back to the Future, right?

If not, do yourself a favor and pick it up tonight. Not because it is a pretty enjoyable way to spend 90-minutes or so…but for market research, I swear.

Whether we like it or not, we are all headed to a place that looks a whole lot more like the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s then it does the 80’s, 90’s or today. Some of the smartest social media marketers have already left in their flux capacitor powered Deloreans without you.

• Dharmesh Shah
• Mike Volpe
• Marc Benioff

Profile: One of the most well-known online media and marketing software companies, with a blog that is as ubiquitous as Facebook in the social networking sphere was co-founded by Brian Halligan. HubSpot, who has since raised tens of millions in funding, starting out as a humble marketing service company serving up websites, hosting, and other marketing tools for the early stages of online marketing. However, HubSpot was named one of the fastest growing technology companies to date, with the statistics to back it up. Halligan was part of that extreme growth, eventually becoming CEO of a highly profitable--and well known--company, earning him to be on the list of best inbound marketers.

Person of Interest: Pete Cashmore

AKA: The Young Gun

Known Associates:

• Ben Parr
• Lance Ulanoff
• Robyn Peterson

Profile: Originally founded in Aberdeen, Scotland, Mashable has become a household name for most because of its huge archive of information best suited for marketers as well as wealth of technology, entertainment, and science news. The man behind Mashable is Pete Cashmore, The Young Gun, who founded the website in 2005 at the mere age of 19.

• Diana Pirillo
• Kevin Rose
• Robert Scoble

Profile: Founder, creator, and geek personality, Pirillo has been online and an inbound marketer since 1996, having started out with the website and blogging network Lockergnome. He has built up an entire, sprawling network of blogging networks, websites, and most notably online video content. Previously, Pirillo hosted a television show called "Call for Help" on 24-hour technology and gadget channel TechTV, which is now defunct. Because of this media exposure, especially to video, Pirillo now regularly contributes to CNN, is a partner at YouTube, hosts daily Ustream.tv shows, is a regular guest at CBC, and even has his own video shows all about technology, Internet, and other things that interest him.

Would you want to be marketed to the way you are currently marketing to your customers?

It seems a little too simplistic, I get it.

After all, today’s marketing is supposed to be all about funnels, metrics, A/B testing, keywords, SEO, targeting, Google, likes, shares, and follows. It’s a little mind-blowing.

Suddenly we have access to the whole damned world, all at once. To a modern-day marketer it can seem impossible to break through and make the connections necessary for delivering would-be customers what they want…the amazing product, service, or information you have worked your tail off to bring to market.

But here’s the intriguing thing most marketers have totally overlooked.

• Brian Halligan
• Seth Godin
• Guy Kawasaki

Let’s debunk this one once and for all, shall we.

Google [Search] is in the business of doing one thing, and doing it better than anyone else on the planet: Providing people with search results that are relevant to them for given keywords and/or phrases [whether they are succeeding at this is another question all together]. That’s it. If Google fails to deliver on this one simple objective, people will leave en masse, and so they are constantly fighting the battle to provide these ultra-relevant results.

Google has the search “thing” under control [for now]. At least in terms of owning the lion’s share of eyeballs, which is what should matter to most businesses. It’s less important, as businesses, that we spend the bulk of our time chasing after the details, and more important that we first wrap our heads around the sweeping changes that are underway on the web.

We’ve outlined a handful of things you should have your eye on when creating content moving into the future:

• Seth Godin
• Steve Jobs
• Rich Karlgaard

Rapid-Fire TOFU Creation

If there is any single factor that unites small business owners worldwide, it’s that they want scaleable growth, profit and more leads from their website. While fabulous web design and easy navigation can keep your future clients from hitting the dreaded “back” button and heading to a competitor’s website, you’ve got to capture their interest while it’s still fresh. Your website needs TOFU, which is a silly acronym used by marketers to refer to “Top of the Funnel Offers.” We’re talking free eBooks, eCourses, checklists and templates. You need to trade something of value for your website visitors’ phone number and email address.

But really, who has the time?