Reading Reflection No. 3

1. What was the general theme or argument of the book?

The realm of business, specifically marketing and advertising businesses, is evolving dramatically. Over ten years ago, outbound marketing techniques such as direct mail outlets and telemarketing sales would have been the sure way to grasp the customers’ attention. Now, outbound marketing is growing more and more obsolete with inbound marketing taking its place.

2. How did the book, in your opinion, connect with and enhance what you are learning in ENT3003?

The one thing that truly connected this book with my experience in this class is the focus on customers’ wants and needs. In “Inbound Marketing,” Galligan and Shah discuss how marketing is all about following where your customers will be. They then dive deep and discuss the miracles of the Internet and people have grown accustomed to using the web to shop and gather information. Albeit pretty straightforward, this whole notion of accommodating to your customers and going off of their needs really connected with my experience taking ENT3003. With all the interviews and constant feedback, it truly does show that a business can only be as successful as its customers and their loyalty.

3. If you had to design an exercise for this class, based on the book you read, what would that exercise involve?

Based on this book, I would probably try to create more of an experiment than so much as an exercise. I would group up individuals into two distinct groups, one would focus on outbound marketing techniques (e.g., radio ads, TV ads, direct mail, telemarketing, etc.) and the other group would focus on inbound marketing (e.g., social media, texts, emails, online presence, etc). Both of these groups would have one exact same mission and would need to reach out to at least 20 people (the same 20 people for both groups). Once their marketing tactics are completed, an online survey will be sent out to these 20 subjects. This survey would essentially have them provide any sort of feedback relating to their experience with these two groups and which marketing technique persuaded them the most. Hopefully, this exercise/experiment will provide some insight on the effectiveness of either marketing techniques.

4. What was your biggest surprise or “aha” moment when reading the book? In other words, what did you learn that differed most from your expectations?

Shah and Galligan did a really good job describing how dramatically inbound marketing affected the democratic primary election for Obama and Clinton back in ’08. At the time, I was only in middle school so concepts such as marketing and politics were outside of my realm of understanding. But now that I am older, I would think back to that time and wonder how a first-time senator was able to beat a huge political figure like Clinton. You can definitely say I had an “aha” moment when Galligan and Shah went on to describe the magic that is inbound marketing. Twitter followers, Facebook likes, LinkedIn connections, and many other forms of social media presence had the ability to change the game for Obama back in ’08. I always knew social media was a powerful tool, but I would’ve never thought that even back then it was able to have the ability to change the political climate. Nowadays it seems so obvious, especially with a lot politicians growing their Twitter presence and top news getting infiltrated through this platform. Yet, it still baffles me from time to time.