Inbound Marketing for Kids
“A more efficient website indirectly benefits young families with respect to the quality of time they spend together.”
Why does it make sense? How can inbound marketing benefit children in any way? Aside from the obvious of website publishers having the opportunity to create a cleaner (and, where applicable, more inclusive) Internet, there are other pluses to running an efficient environment that extends beyond business transactions.
More Family Time
Simply put, helping site visitors find what they're looking for in order to extract whatever information, tools, and/or products they want or need quickly does, in fact, assist with providing additional time with their families, indirectly. How often does a person conduct a viable search online only to be distracted by cross-promoted ads (or other digital items), making what was supposed to take a few minutes become half a day of relatively useless browsing?
Many (if not most) users of these sites have children, and just as they're responsible for their healthy upbringing, so too should site owners be responsible in the way they display & deliver content.
We understand that part of the beauty of the Net is the freedom it's virtually, no pun intended, defined by. An openly-connected network is good in our opinion, but it also opens the door to nonsensical nuances that detract from what's important. If free will is real, it definitely comes with some opposition. In other words, site visitors do give up a level of control in exchange for whatever value a publisher may provide. Call it trust, but they don't have much to say in the matter.
To sum up this point, we hope that both inviduals & companies with a Web presence take appropriate actions toward properly governing their own sites. It's up to us to make things better so as to help the people we're serving. This inevitably includes moms & dads of young children making a living while attempting to find peace in an oh-so-crazy world.
Better Interaction
An element of inbound marketing we often discuss as being empowering is how the focus tends to remain on the website. This central hub's content is made shareable to social channels, and while we might have even grown a significant community of brand ambassadors on a third-party platform, our target demographic is encouraged to visit our site for deeper levels of interaction. Responding to support issues, curating articles & white papers, and, of course, processing orders (or evangelizing the products & services of others) — these operations should take place, once again, in the central hub (i.e., your website) where optimal results are concerned.
What we're essentially attempting to do is include our site visitors & customers in (meaning within) our circle without placing them on the circle itself. Unfortunately, most brands use the circle lining (a metaphor, of course) for what they consider to be socializing. Ask your audience an ambiguous question (or post an image/video that evokes an emotional reaction) and let the responses flow in; this is the general format used. It's literally encouraging a runaround without the frustrations associated with experiencing a problem.
There's either no or negligible interaction (beyond endless mundane discussions) on the circle lining. But it isn't just wasted time on the part of fans & followers, it's a detachment from (and, to a degree, loss of identity within) their true ecosystem, the one away from the Internet — their family. We can't stop technological advancement, but we can use it better. Ultimately, a person should take what they need from the Web, and apply it to the real world... not the other way around.
A Secured Future
Eventually, all kids grow up; this is the constant. How they grow up is the variable. Morally-conscious decisions should & will be made if the greater good is the bottom line. It's okay for website publishers (established companies, offline/brick-and-mortar businesses, and bloggers alike) to profit; it's expected and helps keep the economy running healthily. In contrast, ethics & a general conscience come into play when choices begin to affect the whole; this usually starts with one's family and, inevitably, includes those of others moving forward.
While you may consider yourself to be esoteric or down-to-earth by nature, it's fairly conclusive that what we do has a butterfly effect. Not only do we have the power to, so to speak, create the future... we can also influence the people we interact with, and, therefore, spend time with. Surprising to some, this happens with individuals we've never physically met. Would you greet a stranger (particularly one with a kind demeanor) seeking direction with a random advertisement — or would you guide them? A website is a marketing tool, yes, but it's also a compass.
Moms and dads everywhere want the best for their kids. But what we sometimes fail to realize as parents is that, aside from being providers & protectors, we're examples that our children could (and likely will) choose to follow when they, too, are adults. With the Internet increasingly shaping our daily lives, how we treat it becomes progressively important. And whether you're on the giving or taking side — securing the best possible quality of life for upcoming generations will be determined by our ability to balance performance and ethics.