What's the Key to Inbound Marketing Success? Be the Old Bull.
Posted by Chris Stone
There's a story about a young bull and an old bull. The two were standing at the top of a hill overlooking the pasture full of cows. The young bull started jumping around, turned to the old bull and said, "Look at all the cows down there. They're just waiting for two bulls like us. Let's run down there and take care of those cows." The old bull turned his head, looked at the young bull and said, "Let's walk."
This may not be the exact way you've heard the story, but there's a great lesson to be learned. The young bull was excited and ready to "attack", looking for immediate gratification. The old bull, while just as ready and excited as the young bull, knew that the gratification the young bull sought immediately would happen but he didn't want to wear himself out going down the hill.
Be Quick, but Don't Hurry
"Be quick, but don't hurry" was one of John Wooden's favorite sayings and was a title of one of his books. As you begin to embrace the inbound marketing methodology, you want to be quick to get your website built properly for lead generation and optimized for your best keywords so that you can start ranking in the search engines. However, you don't want to hurry when creating your remarkable content like blog articles, whitepapers or e-books. However, you need to hurry and get involved in social media by following thought leaders in your industry on Twitter, connecting with professionals in your target verticals or your industry on LinkedIn and commenting on blog articles that are relevant to your industry and keywords. You have to be nimble and recognize those opportunities when you need to be quick and hurry, and exercise restraint properly when the opportunities may not be optimal.
Be the Old Bull
The biggest key to success in inbound marketing is patience. You have to understand that building a presence takes time and work. There's no instant fix or light switch you can flip to immediately start being successful, especially if you're just getting started. You have to focus a great deal of time on creating remarkable content, optimizing that content for search engines and promoting your content via social media. As you're creating content, you also have to focus on lead conversion. How will you convert the qualified website visitors to your site into qualified leads?
Patience. That's the secret to inbound marketing success. Without patience, or an enhanced desire for instant gratification, you increase the likelihood that you will miss a step in the inbound marketing process and not achieve the results you desire. Those desires will vary based on your current situation, but ultimately patience in inbound marketing will increase your chances for winning.
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