Inbound marketing is anything you do to make connections with potential customers. It may be social networking, search engine optimization, or article marketing. The power of inbound marketing is that it is an efficient way to generate sales leads through relationships created by social media, through inbound links, and through search engine rankings.



So, what do you need to know about the 4 P's of inbound marketing?

1. Persona. Persona refers to the profile of the demographic you want to reach. But don't be fooled into thinking that this demographic includes only potential customers. It also includes bloggers who may write about your market niche, media outlets, and current customers. As you consider the persona of your demographic, think about what their goals are, what types of media they use when solving problems or trying to answer questions, their values, their vocabulary, the types of multimedia that attract them, and what kinds of problems they might be trying to solve.

The more thought you put in to your persona, the more efficiently you will be able to connect with potential customers and others who have the power to get your name and message in front of those who need to know about you and what you offer.

2. Publishing. After you've created your personas, think about how you will design content to meet them where they are. SEO experts and internet marketing professionals know that content is king when it comes to inbound marketing. This includes podcasts, blogs, case studies, eBooks, and articles. The beauty of content creation is that you will rarely if ever have to pay for advertising space given the wide variety of free content distribution opportunities available.

Make sure that your content is constantly updated and always relevant. This will ensure inbound links and a higher probability of receiving high rankings for your chosen keywords.

3. Participation. Social networking has forever changed the face of internet marketing. Marketing is now about making connections, building relationships, and sharing information. It is no longer enough to put a marketing message in front of potential customers in order to influence them. Marketers must now use relationships to influence others. Participate in the social web by monitoring your favorite blogs and news sites, commenting on blogs whenever your comments are appropriate, rating and reviewing products that are relevant to your market niche, posting to forum discussions that are relevant to your products or services, creating accounts on MySpace and Facebook and using those resources to your greatest advantage, and utilizing Twitter.

In some cases you will have to do some research about how to most effectively and efficiently use social networking, but the time you put into it will certainly pay off in the end.

4. PageRank. PageRank is Google's method of measuring the popularity of a website. It is calculated on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the highest. While Google never releases the algorithm that it uses to calculate PageRank, most SEO experts and internet marketing professionals believe that inbound links from relevant sites have the most bearing on PageRank.

You can increase your inbound links quickly by publishing high-quality, relevant content, and by natural search engine optimization. And the higher your PageRank, the more your site will be sought out by potential customers, competitors, and those with whom you can build important relationships.

Know who you're marketing to, engage in social networking, create fresh content, and optimize your website to maximize inbound links. You'll be well on your way to mastering the 4 new P's of inbound marketing.