Rand Fishkin, the founder of the awesome SEO software and tools company SEOMoz, recently gave this excellent presentation at a Hackers and Founders meetup that makes a case for inbound marketing and provides actionable things to attract customers through this channel. If you haven’t tried SEOMoz, they have a free 30 day trial that is worth checking out (affiliate link).

Here are some key takeaways from the presentation:

• People don’t like interruptive ads.
• Having a remarkable product, like a USB Doomsday Device, makes it easy to earn links and social shares.
• Search is one of the most popular online activities – 92% of internet users do search.
• In the last year Google saw one of their highest levels of growth in the number of searches.
• Search sends highly qualified, highly targeted traffic.
• Kimpton Hotels fulfilled a request of a customer who requested kittens and Reese’s Pieces and the story made it on Reddit, which received a lot of attention.
• The first position on Reddit can send 40,000 visitors in an hour.
• Create content that people can embed on their site with a link to you like the Simply Hired trend graphs.
• Simply Measured can export your Twitter followers into Excel which can be used to request links.
• Followerwonk can be a great way to find and build relationships with journalists who cover your sector.
• Reward the person who is referred like DropBox.
• Creating a list of top blogs or sites can earn you links.

SEOMoz provides a ton of free resources for learning about search engine optimization including a great Q&A feature that allows you to ask the community any questions you have. I highly recommend their free guides like the Beginner’s Guide to SEO and The Professional Guide to Linkbuilding. They also have an awesome weekly free video series called Whiteboard Friday which has grown to hundreds of informative videos. Their webinars are top-notch and provide great information and tips on SEO.

Steve Jobs introduces the Think Different advertising campaign and explains Apple’s philosophy on marketing.

• “To me marketing is about values”.
• It’s a very complicated and noisy world and we don’t have a chance to get people to remember much about us.
• We have to be really clear about what we want people to know about us.
• “Even a great brand needs investment and caring if it’s going to retain its relevance and vitality”.
• The dairy industry has tried to convince us that milk was good for us for 20 years and sales have fell. Then they did the “Got Milk” campaign and sales increased.
• Nike never talks about their product in their ads, they honor great athletes and great athletics, that is who they are and what they are about.
• Our customers want to know who we are and what we stand for.
• We aren’t about making boxes to help people get their jobs done.
• “Our core value is we believe that people with passion can change the world for the better”.
• Markets may change, but values shouldn’t change.

Here is a better quality version of the Think Different ad.

Here is a great version of the ad by Apple that honors Steve Jobs.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” -Steve Jobs

In this presentation Mike Volpe from Dreamforce, CMO of HubSpot, discusses the negative aspects of marketing automation and makes a case for inbound marketing. You can learn more from Mike Volpe by following him on Twitter at @mvolpe or checking out his weekly marketing show Marketing Update.

Here are some of my takeaways from the presentation:

Bob Gilbreath discusses creating marketing that adds value and is meaningful to consumers.

John Moore discusses how to create buzzworthy companies.

John Jantsch discusses creating a culture that earns referrals.

Andy Sernovitz discusses word of mouth marketing.

Jay Ehret discusses planning your brand.

Christopher S. Penn, host of Marketing Over Coffee discusses whether your business should have a podcast.

Jason Falls on moving the needle with social media marketing.

David Meerman Scott discusses the new rules of marketing and creating a world wide rave.

Rory Sutherland discusses how advertising creates intangible value.

A great short Ignite talk on SEO, including why SEO is not marketing by Conrad Saam.

Simon Sinek discusses focusing on not what you do but why you do it.

Joseph Pine discusses authenticity in marketing.

Dan Ariely discusses understanding our irrational behavior which has important implications in marketing.

Jason Fried discusses marketing by educating.

David Armano from Logic+Emotion discusses personal branding.

In this episode of the Ries Report, Al Ries discusses ladders in the mind.

Seth Godin explains the idea of Tribes.

Seth Godin explains the idea of the Purple Cow.

Josh Burnoff discusses leveraging social media for marketing results.

Sean Moffitt describes the concept of WikiBrands.

Seth Godin gives a talk at Google.

Joseph Jaffe on marketing after the 30 second spot.

Photo Credit: gamerscoreblog

Books From This Article

Advertising executive Rory Sutherland gives a brilliant and humorous talk at TED about how marketing creates intangible value and why this is good for society. He points out that while creating tangible value requires raw materials, energy, and labor, creating intangible value just requires a good idea. Marketing often involves changing the perception of a good or service so that it has a greater perceived value. Sutherland points out that changing the perception of something can be just as satisfying as changing reality.

Sutherland makes a good argument for why marketing is not evil as it is often portrayed, but can instead help solve some of society’s important problems including the growing scarcity of natural resources, waste, and public safety. If we spend a larger portion of our total dollars on intangible value, the result may be a reduction in waste and burning of fossil fuels. This is because it takes no more physical resources to make an Apple computer than it does to make an Acer, but the Apple has a higher perceived value. This added perceived value can create greater wealth in the population, even as physical resources become more scarce. In public safety, we can apply the rules of persuasion to nudge people into making healthier decisions. Sutherland says that persuasion is often better than compulsion when describing how speed signs like a flashing happy or frowning face sign is about 10% of the cost of a speed camera, but prevents twice as many accidents.

The most important Simon makes is that “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. I love the following quotes:

“If Apple was like everyone else a marketing message might be: We make great computers. They’re user friendly. Want to buy one? …Here’s how Apple actually communicates: everything we do, We believe in challenging the status quo, we believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use, and user friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?”

“The goal is not to do business with everybody who needs what you have, the goal is to do business with people who believe what you believe.”

So start with why instead of what when you are rethinking your marketing strategy, and this flip can change how people think about your company and why they should do business with you.

People do business with companies that believe what they believe because of our strong tendency to want to align our actions with our self perception. This is why people who identify themselves as Republicans or Democrats, will vote against their self-interest. We don’t want to experience what psychologists call cognitive dissonance – “the uncomfortable feeling of holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously” (Wikipedia). Therefore companies that have a strong identity often become very strong brands.