Here’s a long, thoughtful post which you might like to consider over the weekend. Inbound Marketing and the Next Phase of Marketing on the Web on the Inbound Internet Marketing blog looks at just how a major shock in the business and financial markets led people to change their online marketing strategies in 2001, so the current market crises may have the same effect.

Back then, web advertising shifted from display (banner) advertising towards pay-per-click (although at the speed most industrial B2B companies operate, that’s only just being realised in 2008). This time, the article suggests, businesses will be looking to stop pushing their messages with advertising and instead, they’ll want to pull traffic with the content on their website.

The three central components to this strategy will be having great content, optimising your search engine presence, and creating a buzz about what you have. If that all sounds a bit far-fetched for industrial marketing, I don’t believe it is. And I’ll be discussing them over the coming months in this blog.

Yesterday I touched on the subject of why online marketing might be something to concentrate on during a recession, and why budget restrictions might mean it’s time to “rip it up and start again” when it comes to business marketing plans. Today’s article goes much further into that idea, and if you’re looking for a well-written argument as to why you should leave all those years of old-school marketing techniques behind, this is it.

6 Reasons You Should Invest in Internet Marketing During the Recession on the Inbound Internet Marketing blog gives you exactly that, and is a great basis for a radical reassessment of what your company does. When you’ve got more time than money, it makes so much sense - and that’s just one of the six reasons. Have a read.

The time was when making a video for your business was a special event, and probably involved bringing in an expensive professional production company. For that reason alone, many marketing professionals have never been involved in making a corporate video at all.

Now things are very different.

If your company isn’t already churning out videos, I predict you will be, in the next couple of years. Videos work, the quality expectation of viewers is now much less exacting, and the equipment needed is available to everyone. You may be doing video blogs, video announcements or video product demonstrations, but I guarantee one thing: as part of your marketing, you will be doing video!

So it may be a good time to start training yourself. Here’s a quick article to get you thinking about the sort of things you’ll need to consider - 6 Tips for Making a Business Marketing Video from the Inbound Internet Marketing blog .

You probably don’t have a company blog. Whilst the number of companies producing them is expanding massively, they’re still rare in industrial circles. And that’s a real missed opportunity. Blogs provide some wonderful opportunities to publish content which would never sit comfortably on your main website - and they also get a surprisingly large following amongst your customers and (more importantly) potential custoners. Why do I go to the effort of writing this one every day? Because it keeps the name of my business in front of you, and from time to time I can remind you about our existing services and our future ones.

So do think about starting a blog. We’ll advise you how on the Insider Programme. In Don’t Know What to Blog About? Ask Someone Else on the Inbound Internet Marketing blog, there’s a list of ideas, as well as encouragement to start your blog now, rather than making excuses about why it should be left until next year.