Inbound marketing has become one of the most popular methods for growing your online presence in the last several years, and it’s continuing to grow at an impressive pace.
Old methods like outbound marketing, with pushy sales tactics to persuade random audiences to purchase a product have been struggling and failing to provide value for people.
So, what makes inbound marketing so powerful in today’s digital marketing landscape? To answer that question, we will dig into what inbound marketing is and how it’s different from other marketing strategies available today.
WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING?
Inbound marketing is a strategy which uses different forms of pull marketing in order to generate organic interest in a brand, product or service. It’s meant to induce consumers to seek out a product or service by their own self-interests.
Compared to outbound marketing, where marketers try to find customers themselves and force exposure, inbound marketing gets the attention of potential customers and has strategies in place to help customers to find them organically.
The reason inbound marketing has become increasingly popular in today’s digital landscape is that it focuses on delivering value first to targeted audiences. It doesn’t simply try to force products or services down a customers throat. It focuses on providing valuable content and information that will help consumers make easier decisions.
WHY IS INBOUND MARKETING SO EFFECTIVE?
In today’s world of marketing, consumers have evolved to be more intelligent. They have more tools and avenues for conducting thorough reviews before making a purchasing decision and many different companies offering different levels of products and services. Buyers simply hold more power and have more options than ever.
In order to properly keep up with the rise of intelligent consumers and competition, companies have to evolve their marketing efforts as well. The pace at which information is created and released out to the public is growing at an extremely rapid pace.
Inbound marketing is very powerful in helping to combat the rapid technological growth because it allows companies to give consumers exactly what they want, and at the time they want it. Companies have access to a plethora of consumer search data and can provide the exact solutions to what they want. They can create instant value for consumers which can help drive strong trust, reputation and revenue.
Due to the rapid takeover and overall effectiveness of inbound marketing strategies, traditional marketing tactics which tend to interrupt the buyer experience are becoming less effective in certain markets.
WHY COMPANIES NEED INBOUND MARKETING STRATEGIES?
When compared to other traditional marketing methods, inbound marketing provides some serious benefits when executed effectively. Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that come with an effective inbound marketing strategy:
- It can create a strong brand presence and long term customers.
- Allows customers to conduct the necessary research to make an informed purchasing decision.
- Ability to generate low cost organic leads and customers.
- Builds on itself over the long term.
- Generate powerful social media sharing and organic growth
Inbound marketing strategies can help you create a high-quality piece of web content which can offer some instant and long term benefits. It can help bring immediate attention to your company or product and can continue to serve as a long term asset to your business and website.
This is especially effective for software companies like Moz or SEMrush which allows people to have limited use of their technology for free before they decide to make a purchase. This will enable people to become familiar with the technology and it’s related functions before shelling out money for the product.
Now let’s take a look at some of the most effective inbound marketing strategies that can help you grow the online presence of your product or service.
1. Create Relevant Content (Blogging)
Blogging and the practice of creating consistent and highly relevant content for your audience is the foundation for a robust inbound marketing strategy. Blogging is beneficial for drawing in an audience to your product or service because it addresses questions or concerns that potential customers could have.
Blog posts and long-form educational pieces of content play a significant role in helping you build an audience. They develop a relationship with a client and help them trust your brand and content.
It’s important to mention that organic results from blogging take some serious time and effort. For your content to get discovered, you have to create consistent blog posts. At a minimum, you should be publishing at least one blog post per week if you want to see some organic results to your website.
Your content also has to be relevant to your audience. Some of the elements of relevant content include:
- Creates high value for the audience (offering a free guide or eBook)
- Builds trust and rapport
- Answers their questions and concerns
Search engines reward consistency, so if you create a consistent publishing schedule, you will be slowly on your way to gaining organic search traffic to your website. If you want to get quicker results, you can opt-in for a much more aggressive blogging strategy.
Instead of publishing just 1 blog post per week you can publish 3-5. It’s also worth mentioning that if you do opt in for a more aggressive publishing style, your content still needs to be high quality and relevant to your audience.
Once your website has anywhere between 50 – 100 pieces of content you can expect to see a much smoother traffic growth to your website. So remember, consistency is your friend when it comes to publishing content on your website.
Further Reading: The Importance of Blogging
Tools to check
– writing ideas: SEMrush, UberSuggest or Answer the public
– writing or design; Canva & Grammarly
2. Search Engine Optimization
In order for your content to get discovered organically through search it’s extremely important that your website and the content you publish is SEOfriendly. SEO shouldn’t be your main priority, you just have to be cognizant of how your content will get found online.
It’s important you know the kind of content your readers are looking for before you spend hours and hours creating it. Therefore, it’s important you conduct the necessary keyword research to determine the following:
- The topic has enough interest and search volume
- Keyword competitiveness is low
- You can create better content than the competition
Once you find out that your topic has enough interest, the competition is minimal, and you can provide better value than your competitors, it’s time to start creating your content. When you begin crafting your work, you should make sure the way you structure your content is easy on the eyes for the reader.
One way to do that is to properly split up your topics with their own headings, subheadings and illustrative pictures to create a great experience for the readers.
There are many other factors that influence on-page SEO, but the basics start off with keyword research and proper content structure that will help your audience find a solution to their problem.
Here are some tools which can help you with your keyword research: SEMrush, Moz & UberSuggest.
3. Social Media Marketing
Once you create high-quality pieces of content, it’s a good idea to distribute them across different social media channels. This increases the probability of them getting shared and getting more exposure to your website.
Not only that, but if someone happens to link to your piece of content, social media marketing can function as an excellent source for receiving backlinks. It’s recommended that you distribute your content on at least two social media channels. This can greatly increase the chances of your brand getting discovered and shared across platforms and people.
Some of the most common social media marketing channels that you should look to share your content on includes:
- Youtube
- SnapChat
The more social media channels you share your content on the more you increase the likelihood of your content getting discovered and shared. The cool part about social media marketing is that it doesn’t have to take up any of your time. There are plenty of tools out there like Hootsuitethat can help you automate the whole process with just the click of a button.
Reading tip: What are the best social media tools for marketers?
4. Email Marketing
Another way to increase your audience engagement and retention is by creating a carefully crafted email marketing campaign and sequence. You will often hear the saying that “the money is in the list” and this is very true. So it’s very important that your business has a strong email marketing campaign in place for your audience.
Email marketing is the oldest form of digital communication with an audience and it’s still extremely effective and relevant today despite all the recent technological changes and advancements in digital marketing.
The effectiveness in email marketing lies in the ability to make an impression right from the start. It’s the glue which holds all the other elements of a well-crafted inbound marketing strategy.
It can also create an automated workflow for your business and help to push your content to people who have already expressed interest in your information by opting into your email list.
A great email marketing strategy with a proper email sequence can make a massive difference in perception and value in the eyes of your audience. It gives you the ability to stay in constant contact with your potential customers and can function as a free form of advertising.
Reading tip: How to get Started with Email Monetization
Other Tools to checkout:
– Marketing automation: ActiveCampaign, Hubspot
– Email tools: Reply.io & Outreach
5. Produce Video Content
It’s no question that people’s attention is shifting more towards video-related content. It’s estimated that video related traffic will make up about 75% of all consumer related traffic by 2022. If you don’t have video content as a part of your inbound marketing strategy, you will fall behind quickly.
There’s no better time to add video marketing inside your inbound marketing strategy than right now. People are visual creatures, and video can provide a different kind of insight when compared to the written word. With video, you can create:
- Instructional videos
- Real Customer Testimonials
- Case Studies
- Product demos and walkthroughs
- Entertainment value
You can engage and connect with your prospects in a unique way which can hold their attention much longer than a blog post.
Further Reading: The Importance of Video Marketing
Tools to checkout: Livestorm & Vidyard
6. Giveaway Free eBook or Guide
There’s no better way to provide value than giving away something for free. If a new lead or client feels like they get immediate value without having to pay anything, they will be more likely to make a purchase.
Creating a free e-book or an instructional guide is a great way to help your audience further understand a topic or product while providing massive value at the same time. If you have a complex product or service, eBooks and guides can function as a great lead magnet in order to get a customer to sign up to an email newsletter.
It also provides you with an effective method of driving visitors to your sales funnel and gives you the ability to reach them in a valuable way. It helps to establish a great first impression and can be the stepping stone to a long term relationship.
A free eBook or guide can also help educate customers on a product and help them make up their mind about a purchasing decision. If a customer is on the fence about purchasing a product or service, a free guide or eBook can make their decisions much easier.
It’s worth mentioning that eBooks and guides should be structured in a way where they provide enough value for a customer to make them want to either find out more information or make a purchase. They should be slightly sales focused while providing value for the client.
7. Influencer Marketing
Another effective method to help build your inbound marketing strategy is to use the power of influencer marketing. Instead of trying to market your own products and services yourself, you can get influencers to do the marketing for you.
If executed correctly, it can function as a free strategy to get exposure for your brand, product or service. To make sure your influencer marketing strategy succeeds, you have to find individuals who can connect with your ideal target audience.
It’s also essential that you find influencers who are in a niche that aligns with your brand, products and services; otherwise, it could be disastrous. The size of the audience which the influencer has also needed to be large enough to help you gain the necessary exposure that you are looking for.
The big power behind influencer marketing is the fact that the influencer already has established trust and rapport with their audience. They essentially allow you to rent the attention of their audience because they feel you have a product which fits the attention and need of their audience.
If you are interested in learning more about influencer marketing and how you can find an influencer for your product or service, checkout Influencer Marketing Hub.
8. Track Your Website Engagement and Conversions
Once you begin creating content and start receiving some traffic to your videos and blog posts it’s important you accurately track website engagement and conversions. Tracking is important because it shows you what is working inside your inbound marketing strategy and what isn’t.
Once you are able to identify your most effective strategy accurately, you can begin to focus on creating the type of content that is performing the best for you.
One of the best ways to track how your audience is engaging with your content is through Google Analytics. You can see the flow of your audience and the type of content that they are engaging the most with. See also this blog on how to gain more insights about your website traffic.
By knowing your metrics, you can refine your strategy and make changes that will only improve your inbound marketing strategy for the long term.
Tools to check out: Google Analytics, Leadfeeder & SEMrush
Pro tip: The advantages of a Press Release for Your Website or Brand
CONCLUSION
Inbound marketing can be extremely effective in helping you grow your brand and attract new customers. When you find the right strategy mix for your company, you can begin to grow your online presence with consistency and ease. It has the ability to attract the right customers at the right time and help you grow organically without having to spend thousands of dollars on outdated marketing strategies.