As Forbes contributor Nicole Leinbach-Reyhle correctly points out, the simple reason that all businesses need to use online marketing is because their customers are online. If you're customers are online, then your business must be too!

However, just because a business has an online marketing presence doesn’t mean that they’re exploiting it to their full advantage. In fact, in our experience – and we’ve evaluated tens of thousands of websites in our travels across the web – most businesses aren’t firing on all cylinders when it comes to online marketing. 

To answer the question “what is inbound sales” – and more importantly, explain why you should care, we need to take a step back and look at inbound marketing. Here’s the scoop:

As every health services professional knows – whether they offer medical treatments, dental solutions, alternative or complimentary health services, and the list goes on – the healthcare landscape has dramatically changed in the last few years.

As noted by Forbes contributor Alan Hall, “knowing and understanding targeted customers is the overarching rule of exceptional companies.”

In the last several years, few things in the online and inbound marketing world have changed more than guest blogging. In fact, things have become so confusing today, that if you ask 10 people “what is guest blogging?” you’re likely to hear 10 different answers. In fact, if you ask some of the same people “what is guest blogging?” 10 times, you still might get 10 different answers.

According to the Hoover’s, a business information service owned by Dun and Bradstreet, the consumer services industry is comprised of thousands of companies delivering services in a number of areas, including (but not limited to): 

The conventional definition of a content strategy (courtesy of Usability.gov) is that it’s centered on the “planning, creation, delivery, and governance of content.”

There are many pieces of a successful inbound marketing puzzle. And among the biggest – and yet arguably the least understood – is a marketing workflow. 

While running a successful consulting business has its advantages – including but not limited to lucrative financial rewards – the fact is, that it’s not what anyone would call a “passive income stream”. It takes hard work, talent, focus, and plenty of perseverance. 

You already know that marketing research is important. But what you may not fully appreciate is that it’s critical to your survival. As noted by MarketingProfs: “market research is essential to you and your brand’s long-term success. Market research will keep your brand afloat while companies who fail to make research a high priority drown.”