I can’t remember where I read the ancient Buddhist proverb, “Half mat, full mat, a bowl full or rice.”  To me it represents the minimalist subsistence for Buddhist monks.  All you need in the world is half a mat when you are sitting, a full mat when you are sleeping, and a bowl full of rice when you are hungry.  Some might say you don’t need a mat at all, but then again I did not write this proverb.

So what does this have to do with marketing?  Nothing really, it is a lame attempt at an analogy but here is the point I want to get across.  A half mat represents an empty blog or site, somewhere a marketer can place content.  It’s the bare minimum tool any marketer needs today in order to communicate with the world.  A full mat represents a blog full of content.  You need information with keywords so that people can find your blog and learn from you.  And a bowl full or rice represents a head full of ideas so you can create interesting content that people will keep coming back for.

The minimalist human is probably a monk (Sanyasis and Tantrics are probably a little more extreme for my taste).  The minimalist marketer is a publisher, a communicator.  Search engines and social media have made the world flat when it comes to reaching an audience on the web.  If you can publish good content that is interesting (remarkable), helpful (educational) and fresh you can compete with the largest corporations on the internet.  This is the foremost tenet of inbound marketing or minimalist marketing.

What do you think?

Photo Credit: Stefano Liboni

What is inbound marketing? What should we use it? Listen and watch Rebecca Corliss sing her heart out about why she wants to use Inbound Marketing for her campaigns and how she cringes at the thought of Outbound “Interruption” Marketing.

Credits:

Rebecca Corliss (@repcor): Lyrics and Vocals
David Fisher (@tibbon): Accompaniment and Music Recording
Mike Volpe (@mvolpe): Mean Boss Dude in video
Ellie Mirman (@ellieeille): Marketer in video
Pamela Seiple (@pamelump): Marketer in video
Rick Burnes(@rickburnes): Marketer in video
Aaron White (@aaronwhite): Marketer in video
James Vaughan (@J_Vaughan): Marketer in video

Funny viral video from my company HubSpot on why outbound cold calling does not work for lead generation. Enjoy.