Inbound Marketing Strategies

Does Your Business Use Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a powerful tool to help your business attract new customers. Done right, you will connect with prospects who are genuinely interested in your product or service that will result in higher conversions than any other marketing game plan. Here is a deep dive of inbound marketing strategies.

Just What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is about getting your business found online through various content marketing strategies. It’s done by selling a solution, not a service or product.

As explained by Marketo, inbound marketing is a process to help potential customers find your business and convince them to become your customer or client by building awareness, developing relationships, and generating leads.

Inbound marketing employs digital content marketing, such as blogs, videos, social media posts, webinars, and guidebooks – each explaining how your product or service will serve customers’ needs and why/how it is better than the competition. The idea is to provide educational, engaging, and even entertaining content that potential buyers will find palatable. Being relevant and personal are key factors.

The content is distributed through online channels such as social media platforms and email.

Related: Social Media Can Help Market Your Business

Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing

Inbound marketing differs from outbound marketing. Here’s how:

Outbound marketing involves reaching out to consumers to get them interested in your product or service by using a wide-ranging, aggressive approach through direct mail, newspaper and radio advertising, and cold calls. Basically, you’re throwing your message out there to the masses hoping someone will see it and hit the buy button.

Outbound marketing has:

• Non-digital content designed to capture anyone’s attention with messaging to sell products
• Passive messaging distributed through traditional advertising
• Content that must stand out among millions of other ads consumers are bombarded with each day

Related: Remarketing Your Existing and Potential Customers

 Inbound marketing focuses on creating and distributing content that will not only attract prospects to your website but prove to them you are their best fit.

Inbound marketing has:

• Informative digital content targeted at specific audiences, written to help solve consumers’ problems
• Interactive content: social media posts, blogs, reports, webinars, etc.
• Tailored messaging to specific consumers

Inbound Marketing Strategies

According to Hubspot, inbound marketing strategies are applied in three ways:

1. Attract – You don’t want just anyone visiting your website. You want a prospect that will become a lead and of course, a customer. Valuable content and conversations will establish you as a trusted advisor and draw in the right people who will want to engage with your business.

Provide valuable blogs, social media posts, and other content that explains how your product/service is the answer to a potential customer’s issues, testimonials from customers about how your business helped them, details about your product/service, and promotions.

Publish your content across social media platforms and create ads to boost awareness of your   business and what it offers to a target audience. Use conversion tools like a lead magnet (downloadable content), CTA (Call to Action), a landing page, or a form so you can capture a prospect’s contact information such as an email address.

Utilize SEO (Search Engine Optimization) using keywords so your content will pop up on a search results page to your target audience – those who search for a specific product/service your business offers.

Related: 3 Search Engine Optimization Tips

2. Engage – Build long-term relationships with leads and customers by presenting insights and solutions that align with a prospect’s pain points and goals, so they are more likely to buy from you.

Keep an eye on your online reviews and social media posts about customer experiences with your business. Respond to any interactions with followers to ensure them you are listening and care. Consider sending out an email, a survey or offering a chatbot requesting feedback on the customer’s experience. These are great engagement opportunities.

When customers find success and share that success with others, it attracts new prospects to your business, creating a self-sustaining loop.

3. Delight – Empower your customers to find success with their purchase by providing help and support before, during, and after their purchase. Remember, you’re offering ways of helping to solve a customer’s issue, not just selling a service or product. Delighting customers involves assisting customers in any situation, whether or not your business gets any value out of it. A delighted customer becomes a brand advocate and promoter – ensuring they will spread the word about you. So, handle all interactions, both big and small, with care.

Related: Why Your Business Needs a Marketing Funnel

 Benefits of Inbound Marketing

There are many benefits to inbound marketing including:

• Inbound marketing brings leads to you. Inbound marketing generates three times more leads per dollar than traditional methods (Content Marketing Institute).
• Inbound marketing is easy on your budget. Businesses that mainly rely on inbound marketing save more than $14 for every newly acquired customer (Hubspot).

 Inbound marketing has a proven ROI (Return on Investment). 44% percent of brands that use marketing automation software see ROI within six months, while 75% see ROI after one year (Groove Digital Marketing).

Related: 5 Essential Digital Marketing Workflows

 Inbound Marketing Tips

Here are a few tips from Marketo to get your inbound marketing going:

• Define your business goals. Identify your target audience and learn all you can about them. You can’t write content to inform your customers until you know your audience.
• Provide content at every stage. Be ready to answer questions from your customers as they go through each stage of their buying journey with you. What makes your business unique? Why should they listen to you? You want to attract and retain your customers by Having a personalized approach will attract and retain customers.
• Choose your delivery platforms. Determine the best way to reach your customers and deliver your content: your blog, social media, or email.
• Create a content calendar. You need to keep a schedule so that relevant and fresh content will continuously flow to keep your customers engaged. This gives your brand authority and earns trust.
• Analyze and optimize. Utilize metrics to measure the success of your inbound marketing campaign. Check SEO rankings and CTR (Click Through Rates) on links and content. See what works and doesn’t. Make adjustments as needed to optimize your efforts.

Using inbound marketing strategies is a vital digital marketing campaign. Contact us today and let us show you how it will work for you business.

Let the Professionals Help!

A marketing agency is your best bet to develop a marketing funnel for your business. You need to focus on your day-to-day operation, so let us do the marketing for you. Metro Annex Interactive has the time and experience to design strategies and plug any leaks that may develop in the funnel! Schedule a FREE Consultation to learn more.