It’s going to happen. I decided. The pressure from outside and within got too big.
I am going to write a book.
There. I said it. A book about Inbound Marketing. REAL Inbound Marketing. What Inbound Marketing is? It’s eh the opposite of Outbound Marketing, and that’s the traditional marketing in which we interrupt people at what they find interesting (e.g. watching a movie) because we want to shout a small message in their ears. More and more companies are switching their marketing from Outbound to Inbound, although I noticed that they still want to do a little bit of outbound marketing: when you download their whitepaper you have to fill in your ‘resume’ and they will call you in 5 minutes. That is what I call semi-inbound marketing, and I see it as a phase. REAL inbound marketing is inbound till the end: the customer will lead the dance. And to quote Doc Searls: “The market will have many more dances when customers can take the lead”.
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The pressure from outside
I heard it more and more often: “Why don’t you write a book about Inbound Marketing? If someone should, it’s you”. But the most important pressure from outside came from the many marketeers who are still interrupting people with expensive Outbound Marketing. Marketeers that cry about laws that restrict them in harrassing their customers by telephone, mail or tracking cookies. Big LinkedIn discussions about how terrible the governments are treating these poor marketeers who are restricted in stalking their customers. But it’s the stalking that put us marketeers at the bottom of the ‘most reliable professional’ list. Am I the only marketeer that is not happy with this position? Don’t we want to change that? Do we want to wait till the next law restricts our hunting behavior?
I’d like to help the image of the marketeer by turning them from hunters to fisherman. Those who put authentic and relevant content online and wait till someone bites. Who show their real, authentic face on social media. Inbound marketeers. But REAL inbound marketing, not the semi-inbound marketing in which the sales department still hunts you, but only after you downloaded a whitepaper.
The pressure from within
I have had to accept it, there is a writer inside me. When I decided to start blogging, I had to push myself writing each next post. Now I see potential subjects every day, and I don’t know which to choose. It’s mainly an e-book from Jeff Goins (click here) about writing books that persuaded me to start doing it. And eh stop it again after two weeks. Because although writing blogs can go pretty quickly, I noticed that writing a book gets you stuck very easily. But then I came upon an idea that suits me: write the book in parts in your blog.
The Plan
So that’s what I’m going to do. From next week on, I will start writing the first chapter, in which the blog will be sort of a summary. I presume something like ‘Why Outbound Marketing doesn’t work anymore’. And I also would like some help: anyone that actively collaborates on my mission by responding to the chapter-blogs, will (of course) be sent the e-book for free. I’m curious. I’m motivated. Let’s start. Who will dance with me?
