Should Inbound Marketing Prospects Trust You?

Not so long ago, social media marketing burst onto the scene and many businesses were scrambling for help. The rush of blog posts, webinars, conferences and other information told them that they must have a social media marketing strategy if they wanted to remain competitive, but they didn't know how to do it.

Overnight, the business world became populated with "social networking experts" and "social media gurus," all lined up to offer advice, manage social media campaigns and collect their checks.

However, it quickly became clear that it wasn't so easy to tell the true experts from the self-proclaimed gurus who were really little more than opportunists. Paradoxical rules of thumb like, "If someone calls herself a social media expert, she's not one," emerged. Because most of the thoughts about what truly made a social media expert were coming from alleged social media experts, it was very difficult for businesses without social media knowledge to determine which experts they could trust. Many got burned.

Then, it turned out that social media marketing was actually just one aspect of a larger concept known as "inbound marketing".  A rush of blog posts, webinars, conferences and other information told businesses that they must integrate inbound marketing into their marketing plans if they wanted to remain competitive. But, they didn't know how to do it.

Overnight, inbound marketing agencies sprang up around the country, populating the web like mushrooms after a hard rain. And, just like those social media marketing clients before them, businesses don't know how to determine which agencies really have the knowledge, which they should listen to, and which are opportunists who know little more than the company's own marketing director.

For the true inbound marketing expert, this creates an opportunity, not an obstacle. Being able to back up your claims can quickly separate you from the pack. But, you must be conscious of the pretenders in your midst and the fact that so many of those statistics you're bandying about are coming at your prospects from all directions. Instead of just telling them inbound marketing success stories, start telling them YOUR inbound marketing success stories--just like you'd tell a client to do.

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