If you work in digital marketing, you’ve undoubtedly heard of “inbound marketing” in your experiences and probable seen it in action several times. Many marketers emphasize the significance of inbound marketing in their digital strategy.
The basic functions of digital marketing are straightforward. Inbound marketing can be a cost-effective approach for attracting and converting customers in a budget friendly, ROI driven process.
But first, let us differentiate digital marketing from inbound marketing.
What is digital marketing, and how does it differ from inbound marketing?
Digital marketing refers to any marketing on a digital platform. It is digital marketing when you market your product or services on your website, social media, or by email. Inbound marketing is a part of digital marketing as a whole, wherein it uses content to attract customers to come and visit the company’s website or social media account.
Inbound marketing is designed to tailor content that would solve a target audience’s pain points as well as form connection between the brand and the customer.
Why Is Inbound Marketing Effective?
Inbound marketing is focused on achieving three goals – to attract leads, to engage potential customers, and to convert visitors into buying customers when they are ready for the products or services being offered.
Content that are used for inbound marketing is effective as it leads customers to the brand, product, or service story you have created.
Inbound Marketing provides long-term value
Outbound marketing materials (mailer, brochures, video ad) usually have a shorter lifespan than inbound marketing content such as instructional manuals, infographics, case studies, or eBooks. You may build trust and significant long-term connections using the inbound method as it is designed be a timeless solution-based material that demonstrates your expertise to the reader..
You can update the inbound marketing content in real time by adding more relevant and fresh information, always keeping the customers’ pain points and questions in mind.
Using inbound marketing, can avoid spending hours manually emailing and contacting new leads in exchange for a few sales.
Users prefer inbound marketing
According to a survey, 81% of respondents consider trustworthiness of the vendor when making purchasing decisions. But unfortunately, they’re also accustomed to advertisements that make huge promises but never deliver.
Inbound marketing tactics avoid this “false promise advertising” by publishing actionable and entertaining content that is more authentic and helpful.
Inbound marketing is cost-effective
Using inbound marketing means that you connect your brands and services to your website using quality content within your digital marketing efforts.
Small business owners can effectively develop their strategy because of the minimal cost of inbound marketing, unlike traditional types of advertising such as newspapers, television, and billboards. These kinds of advertisements need a significant amount of money for effective and proper execution and are difficult to measure in terms of effectiveness.
Inbound Marketing Strategies
Here are some methodologies to gaining customers the inbound way.
- Create meaty and valuable content that would answer your customers pain points.
- Research your customer’s buying behavior.
- Segment your customer base on trends, patterns, and behavior.
- Design helpful email campaigns.
- Have active social media campaigns to engage your customers.
- Take advantage of SEO.
- When selling products, be solution-selling and not product selling.
- Ask questions and feedback – listen to your audience on social media.
The key to achieving a successful inbound marketing approach is to always be a helping hand to your target audience and then create content that would help them solve their problems.
Do you want to learn more about this topic? You can learn more by reading Rob Dunford’s blog Google SEO Strategy.
You can contact him if you want to know more about the importance of a fast-loading website to your business.
Rob Dunford is a marketing consultant based in the Great Toronto Area. I have over 25 years of experience in marketing planning and implementing for small business.