21A – Reading Reflection No. 2

For this post, I read Inbound Marketing by Brian Halligan.

1. The main theme prevalent throughout the book is maintaining a strong connection with your market or customers. The book lists many techniques and mediums to use in order to build this connection.
2. This book strongly connects with this course because as an entrepreneur you need to understand your customers' needs to begin. In fact, one of our recent assignments involved creating an avatar and trying to deeply understand your customers' lifestyle. The book strongly emphasizes how more understanding of your customers will lead to better satisfaction from both parties.
3. One of the mediums this book discussed to better connect with customers was using social media. If  I were to design an exercise, it would involve creating a brand profile for your product/service. This would include making a username, a summary of what you do/sell, why you decide to sell, etc. 
4. The biggest surprise that came to me was after reading about competition. The book explains how competition is an important aspect to consider daily. There are many ways to measure competition, such as using search engines to see relevant results. As web searches are one of the main ways people will find you, it is important to distinguish yourself from competitors online in order to gain customers.