Mastering Inbound Marketing Systems

When you get good at marketing, you don’t have to do as much selling.

One can define marketing as whatever actions you take to inspire a customer to inquire about your product or service, while sales is what happens after the inquiry has been made. If your marketing is lackluster, you’d better have a very good sales pitch. If your marketing is great, the sales part of the process won’t be very difficult. 

Most people have a hard time with sales. To sell something, you have to convince people of something. Marketing is less about convincing and more about confirming an existing need.

When you engage your audience and gauge their interest first, then offer your product, that’s inbound marketing. Making the offer first is indicative of outbound marketing.

Just as there’s a difference between sales and marketing, there’s a difference between inbound marketing and outbound marketing. In inbound marketing, you’ve confirmed a buyer’s interest before making an offer. Outbound marketing means making an offer before you know he or she is interested. 

Podcasts are generally a good means of creating inbound marketing. ...