Sorry for the massive amount of posts on marketing, but that's my job so you're stuck with it 
For the last several weeks I've been pondering the differences between inbound and outbound marketing (i.e. creating and sharing information so people search for you vs. cold calling, direct mailings, and commercials/advertising where you go to people) and it's amazing to me how much more effective inbound marketing has the potential to be, yet how few businesses are employing these techniques. In my previous life as a consultant all marketing attempts were focused around direct mailings and taking people out to dinner, yet most of the business that I saw come in was through referrals, or people who saw the website and found it interesting or from conferences where our experts were giving talks.
If you can't tell, I've been reading a lot of blog posts from hubspot and have clearly been drinking the "juice". Creating a wealth of information which inspires people to go to your website means that those visitors have been primed for your product. Its not a direct mailing for them to throw away, they are WANTING more information! Sharing more means people also will link to you more and thus your Google Search Rankings will go up!
If you are in a business and don't have an ACTIVE web presence then I suggest you start. It's a lot more time consuming but the end result is not only cheaper but more efficient.
