Consumers are being constantly bombarded by sales advertisements every day on TV, radio, billboards and the Internet. Marketing companies are finding, however, that their hoped-for audience has basically turned off to these traditional forms of advertising – using DVR units that skip over TV commercials and surfing online to gather information while mostly oblivious to the banners, pop-ups and other "in your face" promos plaguing that environment. Some even employ the use of ad blockers to filter out all of the irrelevant garbage inundating the Internet.

Finally. Something about marketing finally adds up to your left-brain way of thinking.

It's called inbound marketing, and while it's been sharing the stage with other marketing strategies for about 10 years, it has assumed center stage for only about the last two. As it continues to draw new devotees, understand that it can launch your professional services firm head and shoulders above your competitors – if, that is, your tactics are guided by a comprehensive marketing strategy.

It's the start of Q4, and that means it's time to take stock of where you're at compared with where you planned to be. This inevitably leads to some strategizing on the inbound marketing front so you can get in prime position in 2017.

If you're beginning to think of creating a content marketing strategy as akin to a dating strategy, you've got the right idea. Yes, it can be a beguiling and perplexing process, but when you extend the metaphor, you can demystify the process and set it on the right track – with mutually beneficial results.

While we don’t necessarily recommend the 1976 psychological thriller Taxi Driver starring Robert De Niro unless you enjoy films about scary, messed-up, violent psychopaths, it’s interesting to note that there’s a one-minute and 20-second scene in the movie that nearly everyone old enough to remember will remember. It’s the oft-repeated line, “You talkin’ to me?” According to IGN, a leading movie review site, this scene is the 4th top moment in movie history. In fact, even those unfamiliar with the film are likely familiar with this small bit of dialogue.

As a young child, you likely played the drawing game connect the dots, or dot-to-dot, which probably helped you learn about counting, practice drawing straight lines and improve your hand/eye coordination. In the world of inbound marketing, we find that left-brain thinkers who excelled at connecting the dots as children and later grew up to be engineers or architects have an affinity for understanding the detailed processes required for developing great inbound marketing programs.

If you’re a small business owner and don’t have a strong online presence, you are not keeping up with the times. Whether you are a professional like a doctor or lawyer, run a swanky downtown spa or sell used car parts from a dusty garage, people are online looking for what you sell. If you aren’t there at the right time to meet them, you’re losing sales to the competition.

You've got your website up and now the world can come flooding in your doors, right? Everyone told you to get it on the internet so people could find you, so why aren't people finding you?

Think about it. The internet and digital media are changing marketing today like television did back in the 50's . As homes added TVs to their living rooms, businesses had to figure out how to deal with this new media where customers could actually see the products.

Among marketing and sales management, the analogy of a funnel has been around for a long time. Essentially, it tracks the progression of a prospect as they move through each phase of the buying process, from awareness to satisfied customer. Each company will have its own variation, depending on its unique situation, target audience, product/service offerings, buying process, etc. And with today's digital marketing strategies, the analogy has never been more accurate. With digital marketing efforts, there's no shortage of data. In fact, the difficulty can be too much information. Using a simple, three-part structure like a funnel helps you target specific areas of your strategies to determine what is working and what needs to be improved.