What is Inbound Marketing?

How Can You Use it to Up Your Game!

How do we know our marketing strategies are effective? It is when the strategy reflects the current consumer behavior. It means that an approach that might have worked perfectly a decade or two ago, is not going to work today. This is an obvious fact, as businesses keep evolving, the strategies to promote them change as well. Consider this. Before television, marketing was about print media mostly: posters, billboards, newspaper ads. Then, TV’s paved the way for commercials and video ads. Then it evolved into cold-calls. With the advent of the internet, everything changed.

People no longer purchase newspapers, and everything is becoming digital. This is where inbound marketing steps in, and takes the reins of modern day marketing.

Let us take this article step by step:

• Consuming Media in the Age of Digitalization
• What Should be the Focus for Marketers?
• What is Inbound Marketing?
• Predicting Ideal Customers
• How to Implement Inbound Marketing Techniques?
• The Fundamentals of Inbound Marketing

Consuming Media in the Age of Digitalization

Commercials on TV are no longer a hassle. With Netflix, Amazon Prime and Apple TV, you no longer have to sit through ads you do not want to see. People with cable TV can record their shows and skip commercials. We rely on the internet and social media apps, like Twitter for news on current events, so print newspapers are no longer in fashion. Many of us, including myself, use ad blockers to block banners ads. If blocking is not an option, then we scroll through without even paying attention. Emails and newsletters have already found their place in our trash/spam folders.

What Should be the Focus for Marketers?

The focus today is to reach the ideal customers with content designed wholly for them. Provide them with valuable content to draw them in. Helpful and relevant content saves you the trouble of pushing your campaign in front of a wide audience, with the hope it will reach the interested masses.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is a strategy which uses pull marketing tactics including content marketing, events, blogs and SEO, among others. It focuses on creating content that gives value to the prospects.

Predicting Ideal Customers

Nowadays we have more understanding of our customers, their behavior and how to interact with them meaningfully than ever before. It has also allowed us to predict ideal customers, their needs and the motivators that lead them to purchase something.

You have to think like a client to offer products and services to benefit the customer. In other words, think about what you would want from your brand as a customer, and then apply it in your strategy. It is pertinent for inbound marketing campaigns to have empathy with your intended audience, respect your prospect, like you would want to be respected.

How to Implement Inbound Marketing Techniques?

Nowadays, marketers need to focus on reaching ideal customers by creating content useful to them:

Content Is Elemental

• Blogs
• Whitepapers
• Podcasts
• E-Books

Blogs

Blogging is a great way of telling people why you are the best. It provides them with useful information, without exposing all of your secrets to them. Blogs should comprise helpful posts that will market your business. Blogs are also useful for attracting new audiences to your brand.

Whitepapers

Whitepapers answer questions searched by prospects and help you establish yourself as an expert in the subject. They require email ids for download. Therefore, they are an excellent way of capturing leads.

Podcasts

Podcasts have taken over YouTube in the past few years. Many celebrities like Russel Brand have started their podcasts to get their word out. You can cover topics of general interests, discuss political dynamics, and just have random talks in an informal setting.

E-Books

E-books are short books that provide users with helpful content. They are also not as detailed as white papers, but like the latter emailed to the ones who have signed up for it.

The Fundamentals of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing has five fundamentals:

• Attracting traffic
• Automating marketing
• Loyalty
• Analysis

Attracting Traffic

The primary goal of any brand is to attract users and traffic to their website. Instead, seek to generate visits in a massive way. You can achieve this through:

• SEO
• Content Marketing
• Social Network

Converting the Prospects

You want them to at least have information about them, such as their email ids etc. to make them a lead.

• SEO: Search Engine Optimization positions your website in major search engines.
• Content Marketing: Offers valuable content when users need it.
• Social Network: Use social media to reach your target audience.

Marketing Automation

Marketing automation is based on systematizing the process to communicate with your leads efficiently. You can use:

• Lead-scoring: Quantitative assessment of lead conversion chances.
• Lead-nurturing: Automatic flows tailored to the lead’s needs.

Loyalty

You need to establish a long-lasting relationship using strategies like newsletters, offers, and incentives.

Analysis

If you are not going to analyze and measure the results, your inbound marketing strategy is still incomplete. You need to determine your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

Conclusion

Inbound marketing pulls the audience towards itself through various strategies such as email marketing, whitepapers, and other incentives. The noninvasive technique can help brands to attract visitors and traffic to their website, entice them to become customers and automate the marketing process to reduce conversion times.