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Inbound Marketing
By John Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

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The Inbound Marketing Low-Down
Every business dreams of “easy” sales the sales where customers virtually fall into your lap!
We all want to find that customer who nods at everything we say. When that happens, we can feel confident
that they believe that we are the experts and that we have the best solution for their needs.
The reality is you likely work hard for every customer you get to that point of the sale. But what if that hard
work really involved laying the ground work so that over time, those customers really do fall into your lap?
With inbound marketing, you can lay that groundwork to establish your business as a resource, as a wealth of
information and the right solution to your target market’s needs. And while it takes some work, it does not
require the outlay of cash that many other marketing strategies take, such as massive ad campaigns.
In traditional marketing, you send your message out to the masses. And hopefully, it gets to your target
market and that target market responds. With inbound marketing, you are still sending a message out, but it’s
less intrusive and much more authentic.
Think about it: when you go to a party, do you want to seek out all the cool kids and chat them up, hoping
they will like you? Or would you like to be the cool kid and have everyone come to you?
Attracting Leads to Your Business
By providing relevant and interesting content, you become the cool kid. Your target market wants to get to
know you. They want to
read your articles. They
want to download your
audio tips. They want to
watch your video clips. As
you develop your content
and make it accessible in various formats, you get your name and expertise in front of your target market in
various ways.
Or course, you do have to make sure your content is optimized for the search engines. You want your
informational pieces to be found via free searches. This doesn’t mean you stuff your content with fluff and
keywords over and over again. In fact, doing so will turn a potential customer off. You have to find the right
balance between using those keywords while providing relevant and readable information.

John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

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Starting Your Inbound Marketing Strategy
You already know that the internet is a terrific playing field. It’s the great leveler in that any business can have
a web presence and in many cases the internet reader would never know whether a business is a mom and
pop shop or a million dollar company in a penthouse suite downtown. Any business can and should have a
good-looking, easy to navigate website that appeals to its target market. This website becomes the base for
your inbound marketing strategy.
First up, you need to decide how you will provide information to your target market. Blogging or regular article
posts should be a given. If you don’t have a blogging platform built into your website, you should have that
added. Then you can schedule your posts. Will they be weekly? Daily? You want consistency and timeliness. So
you should establish a schedule that you know you can keep.
Then you need to create a list of blog topics. What kind of information do you want to provide? Think about
what is relevant to your target market. What will they want to read? What will establish you as the expert?
Not a writer? Not to worry. You have several options. Look to someone within your company or perhaps a
trusted colleague. You can also look into ghostwriters to write the content
for you. You want someone to write for your company with a voice that
fits. Not everyone is a wordsmith. And that’s okay. An outsider can write in
your voice and your posts will still be relevant and authentic.
It’s tempting to buy a bunch of articles that are touted to be laden with
key words and optimized for the search engines. But these articles can be

The most powerful tool in your arsenal is your company website blog. You control how much information you
disseminate, what information you provide and how often you distribute that information.
Ideally, your blog will consist of multiple short (but not too short) articles on relevant topics that set you up as
an authority in your field. The goal is two-fold:
1. You get readers who learn to seek you out for your expertise and
2. You get others to link to your material…thereby bringing more readers who will learn to seek you out
for your expertise.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral part of inbound marketing. You don’t have to become an
expert in SEO yourself, but you do need to know what the right keywords are and how to use them effectively.
The goal is to increase your search rank. You want to be on that first page of Google and bing results when
internet users search for your keywords.
The great thing about SEO is that it is something that can be tweaked and worked on to help your visibility.
Over time, you will be able to determine what your effective keywords are – what words are bringing visitors
to your site. And you will be able to track links leading to your site.
You can also track links from within your site. Perhaps your current blog post has a hyperlink to an older post
on related material. Instead of using a direct link, you can use a tool that will allow you to shorten the link and
also see the traffic reports on that URL. For example, we use ilnk.me and get a special shortened URL. Later we
can obtain the information on how often the link was clicked, the highest traffic times and so on. Remember,
information is power and you want that information to know what is working and what is not.
Social Networking Platforms
A bit overwhelmed by all the social media platforms out there? Start with two. Perhaps it’s Twitter and
Facebook. Maybe it’s LinkedIn and YouTube. But start with two and build from there.
Don’t assume more is better.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

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Inbound Marketing and Lead Generation
The whole point of inbound marketing is lead generation. You
are taking internet visitors and hoping that they lead to
eventual sales. But you can’t take gigantic steps to get there.
You need to take one step at a time in order to lay the proper
groundwork.
Here are a few points when it comes to inbound marketing
and lead generation:
 You need to create terrific offers. You have to offer
something that your visitors want. It’s like dating.
What do you have to offer your date? Do you have a
tip sheet? A white paper? Some worksheets?

 The value of your offer should be more than the cost to the internet visitor. Now you’re thinking,
“Wait. He just said to give free offers. So how is it costing the internet visitor anything?” The point
here is that your offer should be something of value. And the internet visitor should not be thinking

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Content is King in Inbound Marketing
One of the great things about inbound marketing is that it is inherently less expensive than outbound
marketing. Even if you need to hire a ghostwriter to create content, it’s still likely to be leaps and bounds less
costly than efforts through other channels. However, that does not mean that content creation is a process
that can be skimped on.

Your Content Must Contain Solid, Helpful Tips
If you are going to publish content under your brand’s name, you do need to know your stuff (or your writer
does), and you need to take the time to show others that you know your stuff. This is not the time to load your
website up with fluff.
The reality is – people are looking for facts. They want answers. They want solutions. They have the power of
the internet at their fingertips, whether that is on their computers, their tablets, or their smartphones.
Lackluster information becomes obvious and it’s a turn-off.
Do Not Click “Publish” on the First Draft
As you develop content for your website, flesh out your topics.
Break them down into readable chunks. Too long and your reader will start to yawn. Too short and it may just
lack substance.
By taking the time to review what you’ve typed up before you share it with the world, you will most likely
identify simple changes that can greatly increase the effectiveness of your content.
Talk in a Human Voice About Relevant Topics
Make your content balanced; don’t get swayed by “shop talk” of creating content that is heavy on the
keywords.
Yes, keywords are important — but if you overdo it, your content will not read well.


you more visible in those keyword searches.
Using Content to Generate Sales
Content reigns supreme with inbound marketing, as it helps with search engine optimization and displaying
your expertise. When you provide relevant content you are becoming a resource that the internet reader can
rely on. This empowers your reader to make the right decision - to work with you! Of course, a visitor doesn’t
immediately turn into a customer. You need to work that lead first.

GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

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youtube.com/GrowSocially
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Inbound Marketing Checklist
I hope that you found the content within this White Paper helpful. I truly believe that inbound marketing can
your business! If you have any questions about you can apply some of the techniques that I discussed, I’d love
for you to contact our company, Grow Socially.
But before I go, I have one more item that I want to share with you. Below is a checklist that you can use to
reference as you seek to ensure that you are doing all you can to put inbound marketing to work for your
business!
 Website
o Blogging capability
o Is it Search Engine Optimized?
21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

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 Guest on radio / internet radio show
o Video
 Look at blog topics
 What can be translated into video?
 Introduce your company
 Employees
 Day to day operations
 Customer Interaction
 Q&As
 Testimonials
 Solutions GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially
GROW SOCIALLY | eARTICLES
Grow Your Business with Inbound Marketing
John P. Foley, Jr. CEO CMO – Grow Socially 21 Concord Street Wilmington, MA 01887
T 800-948-0113 F 800-974-5067
E www.GrowSocially.com

twitter.com/GrowSocially
ilink.me/FBGS
youtube.com/GrowSocially
Search “Grow Socially”
About Grow Socially

Grow Socially helps businesses and associations with their strategic
marketing efforts that include online, content, and inbound
marketing. Social Media being a catalyst in parts of the strategic
planning. We help businesses and associations reach their target
audience, grow prospects, potential members and provide a sense
of community for its customers/members. From websites to email
programs Grow Socially has a team of seasoned folks and experience
in your business to get the job done.
Grow Socially also provides much needed solutions for your
members to assist them in growing their own businesses.