Courtesy of emdot

One of the great things about online marketing is that not all of it has to be spam or companies speaking at you with ads or unsolicited emails. Spurred by the Web’s power transfer to individuals rather than corporations, online marketing has started to transition to a more voluntary, opt-in approach. Seth Godin writes in length about the philosophy behind this idea in his book Meatball Sundae, which I recommend. Also check out HubSpot, the single best source on the Web for inbound marketing info.

Online users have the power of choice, to elect to receive your emails, to read your site or to buy your product. Compare this to traditional tactics such as direct mail, where companies buy a list of addresses, waste a ton of paper and spam the hell out of thousands of people who will probably never even read their sales piece.

Sure, online marketing has its own versions of direct mail. Companies still buy email addresses and send spam. Banner and Google ads speak at online users and not with them. But on the Web, we can opt out of almost everything. From email unsubscribes to ad blockers, users can browse the Web’s infinite information largely ignoring whatever a company is trying to sell.

This idea seems to strike fear in companies transitioning to the online market. They ask, “how can we get our message out there if everyone is ignoring us from the start?” It’s a valid question, but misdirected. Companies shouldn’t be asking how they can get to users, but how they can get users to come to them. If Internet users have the power of freedom and are mostly unaffected by the hundreds of messages directed their way each day, then we need make ourselves more interesting across a wider network than just our corporate home pages.

Start by asking yourself an important question, where else can your company be found online? Other sites? Blogs? Reviews or news sites? Social media outlets? Google a few keywords relevant to your company. Do you see your name? Every time your company, product or service appears on another site you potentially add another piece to your inbound network.

Consider the pros of adding to your inbound network. In most cases, your only cost is time. Frankly, it takes a lot of time and some experience in these channels to produce noticeable results. However, the results are significant in many ways.

First, each piece is permanent, a potential positive and negative. This risk opens up the opportunity to participate in the conversations you’re trying to add as inbound puzzle pieces. If you receive a negative review or blog post, are you equipped to respond? You should be before reaching out to these channels.

Anyone visiting the pieces of your inbound network will then visit your site with an interest already in hand. They’ve already read about your project or watched a video on your product and are coming to learn more. These visitors are what you’re looking for, but does your Web site serve their interests? Can they immediately access the information they came to find? Can they immediately contact you if they can’t? Retaining these visitors and converting them into leads should be high on your online marketing priority list.

Your inbound network also increases your online presence. This translates to an improved online (and offline) brand.  After investing the time and energy to establish your network, you’ll find that it will begin to grow without constant attention and maintenance. The more people are positively bumping into your company online, the more they will talk about you and the larger your network becomes. This means losing some control and you have to be prepared to respond to content you cannot control.

Finally, all these inbound network pieces are contributing inbound links to your company site, a wonderful method of improving search engine rankings. Search engines like Google gauge the credibility of your site in part by how many other sites link back to it. The more sites in your inbound network, the better your rankings can be.

Begin to create your inbound network by thinking of your audience and what they’re doing online, what they’re reading or searching for. Then find your way into these areas and start putting together the pieces of your inbound network puzzle.

Want a secret hint? Start with the corners and edges.