How Inbound Marketing Can Lead Your Startup to Success

Much has been said recently about how traditional marketing is broken. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t work quite like it used to. People don’t read direct mailings, billboards, or online advertisements. Mashable gave these stats recently:

• 44% of direct mail is never opened. That’s a waste of time, postage and paper.
• 86% of people skip through television commercials.
• 84% of 25 to 34 year olds have clicked out of a website because of an “irrelevant or intrusive ad.”

Startups have been figuring this out and have been working hard to build on the newest iteration of marketing: inbound marketing, which aims to educate and inform your market. When it’s done properly, it is insanely powerful. An example we’re all probably aware of is 37signals with their Signal vs. Noise blog and books. They are continuously writing content that hits home with their target market, those who manage projects and client relationships. If you’re new to the tech scene, it’s hard not to spend hours digging through their archives and feel empowered to change the world. That’s great, but as far as 37signals is concerned, spending all this time with them is bound to make you very interested in their products. They earn their readers trust that their the experts at the subject and therefore must have the best tools to tackle the challenges their readers face.

Content is King

I recently re-experienced the enlightenment I had with Signal vs. Noise so many years ago. It happened with the blog Contrast, which is run by a member of the team behind the tool Intercom. Contrast focuses on all the challenges startups have with building their product, getting it in front of users, and iterating to perfection. With so much killer content and benefit brought to me, I was seriously interested in their product. I had never thought I’d need an in-app CRM but their content pulled me in and now that I’ve been using their product, I’ve realized it’s very useful in my work.

Another good example from the tech world is KISS Metrics. They are constantly all over Twitter with great content of their own and from other sources.

It Works Everywhere

Ecommerce sites are pushing hard to become inbound marketers. Mr. Porter and Patagonia jump to mind. Tech consultants run blogs that reinforce their expertise. Scoble famously blogs and keeps Rackspace in the front of everyone’s minds. Even the sugar-water-pushing Pepsi runs a Tumblr with X Factor content that you can assume hits home with their demographic.

Making it Work For You

I think inbound marketing is conceptually simple: create content that truly resonates with your target audience and do it repeatedly. In practice, it’s a real challenge to stay motivated and keep quality high. That must be why we’ve been blessed with a startup like Contently. I guess they’re trying to prove that throwing money at a problem still works after all.