What is Inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is a marketing method designed to attract potential customers rather than pushing a brand, product or service outwardly onto prospects in the hope of lead generation or customers.

In the context of digital marketing, this means using a combination of marketing channels – most commonly content marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and social media – in creative ways to get people’s attention. The objective of a successful inbound marketing campaign is to increase reach and drive quality traffic, engagement and conversions using ‘earned’ and ‘owned’ media.

Just go through this video below explaining inbound marketing

Inbound marketing software provider Hubspot coined the phrase ‘inbound marketing’ in 2006. HubSpot defines inbound marketing as the process of attracting, changing, closing and pleasing customers. By using different types of content at different stages of the buying cycle, ‘inbound methodology’ is “the best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters for your business.”

Strategies for Inbound marketing

These strategies will help you to effectively market your target audience in an inbound manner. Below you will find the strategies for inbound method of attracting, engaging and entertaining customers that will help you spin your flywheel and improve your business.

Attracting

Inbound marketing strategies that attract your target audience and buyer personas are tied to content creation and development.

To reach your audience, start creating and publishing content – ​​such as blog articles, content offers and social media – that deliver value. Examples include how to use your products, information about how your solution can solve their challenges, customer testimonials, and details about promotions or discounts.

In order to engage your audience members in depth through inbound marketing, optimize all of your content with SEO strategy. An SEO strategy is to target specific keywords and phrases related to your products or services, the challenges you solve for customers and the ways you can help your target audience.

The video below explains the Inbound marketing strategies

Engaging

When using inbound strategies to engage your audience, make sure you are engaging and interacting with leads and customers in a way that makes them want to build a long-term relationship with your business. When using these engagement strategies, put in information about the value your business will provide to them.

How you plan and manage your inbound sales calls within specific engagement strategies. Focus on how customer service representatives handle calls from interested people and opportunities. In addition, make sure you are always selling solutions rather than products.

Delighting

Delighting inbound strategies ensure that customers are happy, satisfied and supported long after making a purchase. In these strategies your team members become consultants and experts who assist clients at any time.

Incorporating thoughtful, timely chatbots and surveys to assist, support and solicit customers is a great way to make these people happy. Social media listening is another good option when it comes to delighting customers. Social media followers may use one of your profiles to provide feedback, ask questions or share their experience with your products or services.

Problems that inbound marketing can solve

When it comes to implementing a long-term strategy, inbound marketing is one such investment that will help you increase brand awareness, preference and ultimately revenue.

Problem: I need to increase my brand awareness. Up to 92% of purchase cycles begin with an online search. If your company appears at the top of search results, or is active on a searcher’s social networks, you can increase your brand awareness organically. To do this, you have to make sure that you have the right content and message to show in these major inbound channels.

Problem: I want to improve my brand preference. By educating, entertaining and interacting with potential customers before they even think about making a purchase, you build trust and increase the likelihood that they will choose you when they are ready to buy. Never underestimate the impact of becoming a familiar face.

Problem: I need to generate more prospect leads but have less budget. Inbound marketing is a long-term investment that builds up over time. Your results will multiply as you become more skilled at creating and curating content that naturally attracts organic leads.

Problem: I’m not sure if I have the employs or proper resources to do inbound marketing. Like many things, the more you put in inbound efforts, the more you will get out of it. But, if you have a good strategy that outlines key terms, content, and delivery, you can be sure to avoid wasted efforts.

Benefits of successful Inbound marketing implementation

Inbound marketing is quite unique, it typically costs less than other marketing efforts, and can have a impressive ROI when implied properly.

Inbound marketing brings you leads. Inbound marketing generates 3 times more leads per dollar than traditional methods (Content Marketing Institute).

Inbound marketing is easy on your budget. Businesses that rely primarily on inbound marketing save more than $15 for each newly acquired customer (HubSpot).

Inbound marketing has a proven ROI. Forty percent of brands using marketing automation software see an ROI within six months, while approximately 76% see an ROI after one year (Groove Digital Marketing).

Good examples of Inbound marketing

• Content hubs provide video guides, blogs, case studies, webinars, white papers and related product information on how to do it.
• Combining user-generated content and social media marketing campaigns such as photography contests or reviews.
• Interactive online content pieces created in partnership with related businesses to enhance digital PR and promotional opportunities.
• Creating quality content for your target audience by blogging on your company website.

Conclusion

When it comes to inbound marketing, the higher you invest, the more is your return. Creating awesome content is about mindfulness and commitment rather than budget. You can’t just throw money at content and do it effectively, you have to put your head and heart into it.

If you remember that one thing about inbound marketing, it is important to keep track of performance and improve your approach accordingly. Testing also comes here - find out what messages, valuable content types, imagery, calls-to-action, etc. work best for your target audience and see if you can use them on a permanent basis or apply them to your next campaign.

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