I had a dream last night, I dropped a £250 blog into the slot at the top of my inbound/content marketing machine and after bit of shaking, whirring, a little patience and a puff of smoke, out popped five newly minted clients worth several thousand pounds.
I know what you’re thinking – I’ll have one of those please, especially if you’re the sort of growing company that is short on sales and marketing resources but have a great product or service to shout about.
Ah, but how much is it? Well there’s a handful of well known inbound/content marketing software packages available, you may already know the names and what they offer is compelling – blessed simplification of the online marketing process – at a price (£8K per annum +).
However I’ve heard more than one report that suggests they don’t do the sort of heavy lifting you might wish them to and they require a significant investment in time to learn how to use. There’s a danger that in buying marketing automation software, you might be simply swapping one set of challenges for another.
But do you really need the latest content marketing mousetrap? Indeed, is it advisable to handcuff your business to one software system, especially when new apps and free software are becoming available everyday.
For example when it comes to blogs, the best platform is universally thought to be WordPress and that is absolutely free. Add some landing page software, an email newsletter tool, a download application and some analytics (see marketing automation tool chain below), and effectively you’ve got all the ingredients for an inbound content marketing system you might need.
Inbound Marketing FOR FREE
That’s the top line know-how. However many marketers will again say, well that’s going to take time to put together, even if it is cheaper, more flexible and uses best of breed components.
Well that’s where BlogStar comes in. For the price of a fancy, DIY marketing automation system, you can hire us instead. The software is largely free and the expertise, resource and content is where the investment goes, not in some software no one can work out how to use. And that’s the right way round.
For more information on free content marketing platforms, get in touch
