2011-02-20
One Minute Book Review: Inbound Marketing
Over the Christmas holiday, I finally got around to something I had planned for a while: reading Brian Halligan's and Dharmesh Shah's very popularInbound Marketing
: Get Found using
Google, Social Media, and Blogs
The business world is changing. And it's changing fast. One of the most interesting statistics supporting this does not appear until the last chapter of the book. Here it is:
Between 1955 and 1995, on average, every year there were 20 companies leaving the Fortune 500 and 20 new ones joining. Since 1995 this number doubled to 40. Of the 500 companies in the Fortune 500 in 1995, only 250 remained in 2009!
So why did companies like Amazon, eBay and Google replace other ones likes Toys 'R' Us and Polaroid? The answer to this question is very much related to why Obama defeated McCain in the 2008 US presidential elections.
So what did the Obama campaign have in common with Amazon, eBay and Google?
They realized that throwing the most money at traditional media (television, print) to repeat the same message to as many people as possible as often as possible may not be the most effective anymore.
The point Brian and Dharmesh make is that this 50 year era of outbound marketing is coming to a close. People are getting increasingly better at blocking out these messages.
We are now at the dawn of a new era in the field of marketing: inbound marketing. Instead of focusing on bombarding as many people as possible with a message they don't want to hear, there are new rules that must be mastered on the road to success. Producing remarkable content that people want to read about is the way forward. Turning customers into fans.
And it turns out, we live in an age where it has never been easier. And yet it has never been harder. Google, Facebook, Blogs and Twitter enable anyone to produce great content and get found. Quality trumps dollars. And yet, all of a sudden the competition became global.
How can you and your company stand out and become better at this game?
This book is filled with practical advice on how to get there. Putting Google, Twitter, Facebook , LinkedIn and your blog to use, to achieve a loyal following who will help you spreading the word. And the work they will spread is one about how it is worth their time to be involved with the remarkable things you do!
Highly recommended.
About Axel Fontaine
I'm an entrepreneur, public speaker and software development expert based in Munich.
I'm the creator of Sprinters. Sprinters lets you run your GitHub Actions jobs 10x cheaper on your own AWS account with secure, ephemeral, high-performance, low-cost runners within the privacy of your own VPC.
I also created CloudCaptain, previously known as Boxfuse. CloudCaptain is a cloud deployment platform enabling small and medium size companies to focus on development, while it takes care of infrastructure and operations.
Back in 2010, I bootstrapped Flyway, and grew it into the world's most popular database migration tool. Starting late 2017, I expanded the project beyond its open-source roots into a highly profitable business, acquiring many of the world's largest companies and public institutions as customers. After two years of exponential growth, I sold the company to Redgate in 2019.
In the past I also spoke regularly at many large international conferences including JavaOne, Devoxx, Jfokus, JavaZone, JAX and more about a wide range of topics including modular monoliths, immutable infrastructure and continuous delivery. As part of this I received the JavaOne RockStar speaker award. As a recognition for my contributions to overall Java industry, Oracle awarded me the Java Champion title.
You can find me on 𝕏 as @axelfontaine and email me at axel@axelfontaine.com