Why? I didn’t go to school to be a marketer…

“Why do I have to learn about marketing?” – my initial thoughts when I began to learn about inbound marketing for my internship at Hüify.  I know, whiney right?  I mean, I went to school for web design & development I figured I’d hire my own marketer and I could just handle the pretty stuff.  I am not cut out to be a marketer, I tolerate people, which means I don’t want to talk to them; I’m like my dad.  My mom is the one who says “he’s kill looking for joy” and sometimes that is true.  I’m not that bad but I do try to avoid my fair share of local festivals and nonsense gatherings downtown.

So let me clear things up right now..  I went through the classes to further my education in inbound marketing so I could be apart of the internship.  As I took notes and listened to the videos I began to see the big picture and little pictures of why inbound marketing is important.  It’s so important to every business (I’ll say something deeper later.)  I realized that my view of marketing was muddied before and I this was my image of a marketer:

• Knocks on your door
• A lot
• Gets in your face
• Guilt trips you into buying whatever they’re selling
• Doesn’t go away

OR

• Calls you
• A lot
• Keeps calling
• Annoyingly rehearsed speeches without breathing
• Guilt trips you if you try to say “no thanks”

Of course this applies to some marketers, but not all of them.  These classes taught me that inbound marketing is caring for your customers even if they’re just a website visitor.  I’m going to define Inbound Marketing before I go on:

This definition is pulled from fellow squire Laurene Rapoza‘s blog, you can find that blog article here

”  Inbound marketing is advertising a company through blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, e-newsletters, white-papers, SEO (Search Engine Optimization), social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing. Inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found, and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content.  “

I was very surprised by how much social media feeds into potential customers interest into your company.  During the classes I was bombarded with ideas of what to do for my own future business and things I need to suggest to my parents own businesses.  With the information I learned I feel confident that I will create beautiful content with customer personas in mind.  Hüify’s blog also has an interesting article on social media presence, read it here !

It is so important to attract attention, get the visitor to fill out a form/sign up for emails and convert them into leads.  Once they are leads (receiving company newsletter emails, following your company on social media, etc) you’ll work towards closing them into buying customers and keeping them happy.  I don’t want to give away all the details so lets just say that I was educated, impressed, and changed.

My overall view of a marketer has changed for the better.  I understand now on a deeper level how to optimize my future company’s success online.

Needless to say that I passed the test at the end of the class and I am prepared to optimize each project with the knowledge I acquired!  The internship at Hüify will be an amazing experience I’m sure, I’m excited to get started, they are far more seasoned in blogging and inbound marketing so if you’re up to it, read more at their blog here.