Learning inbound marketing is like learning to play the guitar. The first step in playing the guitar is learning how to play the G chord by placing three fingers on your left hand in awkward positions and strumming the strings with a pick in your right hand. The second step is learning the C chord and the D chord, both of which involve tricky three finger positions on the left hand and strumming with a pick in the right hand. The third step is learning to move your left hand between these three chords quickly. The fourth step is doing a strum with your right hand that sounds half decent while you are moving between the three chords on your left hand. The fifth step is finally learning your first simplistic song. In any given year, x number of people take up learning how to play guitar; .5x get to step 2, .25x get to step 3, .125x get to step 4, and .06x get to step 5. In other words, for every 100 people who start to play guitar, only six get through the first hurdles to play a simplistic song. Up until step 5, the hours you spend practicing are most ungratifying because everything you do sounds terrible. Once you get to step 5, it becomes easier to play and you get immediate gratification from practicing more. In other words, there is a big hurdle at the beginning of learning to play guitar and this hurdle weeds out those people who are not fully committed. Once you get over the barrier, however, the benefits accrue quickly in a most satisfying way.
Learning to do inbound marketing has a small hump in the learning curve in a similar way as learning to play the guitar does. In order to get maximum value from inbound marketing in the form of leads, you need to stick your leg in the water for a couple of months to start, not stick your toe in the water for a couple of days. The benefits come very slowly at first, but they accumulate until you reach successive tipping points. For example, if you just start writing a blog, you do not get much benefit. If you write a blog and your company builds a large following in Twitter, then you get much more benefit from every blog article you write, as you can spread your blog articles through your Twitter network (1 + 1 = 3).
You'll come to points in this process where you'll want to give up, and only those who persevere will make it through. The reality is that none of these individual steps is all that difficult, but they take perseverance.
If you have not started doing inbound marketing yet, get started today before your competitors do. If you have dipped your toe in the water and haven't seen results, put your whole leg in. We have seen inbound marketing work firsthand for hundreds of companies in a myriad of different industries—we're confident it will work for you if you persevere and continually learn.
Go to your calendar and physically block out some time every day of the week for the next three months, during which you will create remarkable content, optimize that content for search engines and social media, publish that content, market the content through social media, and measure the results.
Tom Brady was a backup quarterback at the University of Michigan for his first two years before becoming a starting quarterback later in his career. He was drafted by the New England Patriots in the sixth round after 199 other players, and made the team initially as its fourth-string backup quarterback. When their All-Pro starter, Drew Bledsoe, went down with an injury, Coach Bill Belichick put in Tom Brady. The rest is history, with Brady going on to break the all-time touchdown record for one season and leading the Patriots to three Super Bowl victories (so far).
When interviewed about Tom Brady, Coach Belichick said Brady did not have the physical attributes of a great quarterback in those early years, but he practiced harder than anyone else on the team. In fact, when the coach would arrive at practice, Brady would already be there, having organized the practice squad to do extra drills before the regular squad arrived. Brady persevered despite sitting on the bench behind an All-Pro quarterback for what must have seemed like an eternity.
The great thing about inbound marketing is that you don't have to be a diamond in the rough like Tom Brady. Although social media does take some time, creativity, and know-how, it also has very low barriers to entry—meaning anyone can do it as long you persevere and commit to it. Keep working away at it, and before long you'll find yourself a minor celebrity in your extended network.