A marketing “revolution” is upon us. How Inbound Web Design will help you keep pace with those leading the charge.

The way people wish to be communicated with by businesses (and what they will bother to pay attention to) is changing right before our eyes. It is no longer enough to push your positioning-based message through what we now would consider “traditional” advertising media. Rather, consumers expect to be taught, entertained and, at the very least, informed on your topic, on your area of expertise.

Only then will they begin to open-up to “knowing” what you stand for, genuinely “liking” what you offer, “trusting” your word, “trying” your product or service and “buying” into your brand. It’s an exciting time; One that is trading the traditional marketing “barriers of entry” (i.e. bags and bags of money) for interesting and creative ways of gaining customers attention, respect, loyalty and ultimately their business.

So let’s roll up our sleeves and get busy…

A lot has been written recently on the evolution of modern-day marketing practices and on how internet marketing, in particular, has begun bull-dozing the playing field. I would very highly recommend one such manifesto, Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, written by the co-founders of Hubspot Brian Halligan and Darmesh Shah. It’s a virtual blueprint for gaining a solid understanding of the underlying principals behind inbound marketing. If you are reading this, chances are you have (at the very least) an interest in utilizing inbound marketing (and probably Hubspot as well) to enhance your businesses website and current internet marketing practices.

How it works

Inbound Marketing is founded on the idea that the opportunity and tools exist for us as modern businesses to create the type of human-to-human relationships with consumers that were once only reserved for the corner bakery or barber shop. Generally speaking, this kind of relationship building can be accomplished through the creation and sharing of freely distributed, easily accessible, innately useful, and highly valued content.

This is not an entirely new concept. Throughout the last 50 years or so, content has frequently been used as the precursor or “lead-in” to the sales process (whether by generating a targeted audience in order to sell print advertisements through wonderfully written magazine articles or selling soap with the help of “soap operas”). What is new, however, is how this inbound model allows for companies to take ownership of their content/media assets. This creates a sustainable lead-generating model; a model that actually encourages spending less over time, with your internet-based content living on virtually forever and virtually for free.

This philosophy has proven to work especially well for the traditionally more agile, small to medium sized businesses that may otherwise have been restricted by their limited marketing resources. Through teaching the theory that marketing success can be measured by the “width of your brain instead of the width of your wallet,” Hubspot has become one of the fastest growing software companies in America and Inbound Marketing becoming widely adopted by companies of all sizes.

By now you may be asking yourself, “So, what does this have to do with design?”

After all, we are not disputing that great content is the cornerstone of any inbound marketing strategy. However, we are here to point out that long before your company is able to create relationships with your customers through the amazing things you undoubtedly have to say (see remarkable content), great design will grant you both the necessary attention and the benefit of the doubt needed before your potential customers will hear, read or watch a single word of it.

Throughout the blog, you can find articles on how a few tried and true, “timeless” design tactics, when coupled with the modern-day inbound marketing principals, have helped businesses like yours improve upon:

• Blog Readership
• Landing Page Conversions
• Referrals
• Level of Content Sharing
• Even the prices you can demand for your products/services

What you will not see us suggest is the use of inbound web design in-place of inbound marketing. Rather, the principals behind inbound web design have been created to enhance those taught within inbound marketing. We will frequently refer to, and build upon, these principals as we explain how design, when strategically used, can help you get found more often, convert more of your visitors into leads, and ultimately generate more loyal customers for your organization.

The best part?

Many of these design tips and tactics are things that you can accomplish by yourself with a little Hubspot CMS know-how and a touch of creativity.

Stay tuned…and we will show you how.