I read Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs by Brian Halligan.
1) The argument of the book is that traditional outbound marketing (advertising, emails, mail, etc.) is becoming less effective, and how to use inbound marketing to gain new customers.
2) In the book, Halligan mentioned that being on the internet puts you near competitors, and in order to stand out to your buyers, you must be unique or "remarkable." This reminded me of many of the assignments that we've done in this class and how we've been asked to describe what makes us different/special and how we can stand out from others.
3) If I had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book, it would be: Create a blog for your entrepreneurship idea. Add in as much information as you can - your name, product/service, prices, mission, etc. Do a Google search using key words for your blog and see if it comes up (you will most likely have to do several). How many times did it take to appear? Which key words did you use? If it didn't, what might you try next for it to appear? This assignment would be based off Chapter 6 and SEO.
4) I was surprised to learn how closely you can watch your competition. Halligan listed many different tools you can use to monitor and compare metrics between yourself and your competitors. Halligan suggested you should "be more paranoid," and track the results continuously. This seems tedious and I hadn't realized that you should zoom in this closely on competitors.
Hey Savannah! This is crazy to me because I was watching a video where companies admitted that philanthropy is used as marketing. Big companies can be se crooked sometimes. That being said I agree that in marketing you need to define yourself and what you stand for. Being consistent also helps.
ReplyDeleteSavannah,
ReplyDeleteThis book sounds interesting and appears to have accurately assessed the changes that have occurred in the area of marketing. Many years ago I worked in marketing for a cosmetics and fragrance company, and more recently for a vacation company who used outbound email marketing campaigns and newsprint, and I can see that buyer attention is absolutely much more focused online now.
You made a great connection with how this class has taught us the need to be remarkable and identify what sets us apart/gives us an advantage. I loved your item #3: the idea for a class exercise. I had to learn SEO (search engine optimization) when I had an online Etsy shop, and your suggested assignment relates perfectly to that!
It looks like you learned a lot from both this book and this class!
Susan
Savannah,
ReplyDeleteThe book that you read sounds fascinating and valuable to read. It's cool that Brian compares inbound to outbound marketing and discusses how inbound is better nowadays. I think the exercise that you created is a great idea and sounds very helpful for students looking to start their own business one day. Advertising is very important and things like google searches are very relevant when it comes to the internet.
Hey Savannah,
ReplyDeleteI also decided to read Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan for this reading reflection. Like you, I was surprised that this kind of marketing requires tracking your progress and the one of your competitors continuously, but I guess this is necessary to keep creating remarkable and innovative content and therefore attract more potential customers. Overall, I found this book very useful, even if the social media aspect was a little outdated. I thought your reflection was excellent.