Inbound Marketing is the Big Thing

Inbound Marketing Simplified

Everyone in the Digital Marketing world is now talking about Inbound Marketing. It became the hot topic! Once digital marketing is mentioned, you will automatically find Inbound Marketing being discussed too.

It is a part of the Digital Marketing strategy and it mainly focuses on attracting leads organically. In other words, Inbound Marketing depends on “pulling” leads and buyers who went to a search engine and wrote their issue/inquiry in order to find solutions.

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Table of Contents:

• Inbound Marketing Definition
• How Old Is Inbound Marketing?
• Inbound Marketing Stats & Facts
• Inbound Marketing Components
• Consumer Behavior & Inbound Marketing
• Inbound Marketing Benefits
• Lead Generation with Inbound Marketing

So, what is Inbound Marketing?

Probably like yourself, if you wrote, for example, “what is inbound marketing” in Google and voluntarily clicked on this link, it means that you either curious to know more about the topic or you have an issue in your website and trying to find a solution for it.

That’s exactly why Inbound Marketing is successful, because leads and buyers look for a solution or a piece of information.

Unlike outbound marketing that depends on “pushing” to attract customers and leads. “Pushing” in this sense means throwing irrelevant ads to your face.

For example, you’re watching a Youtube video about marketing and a cooking ad pops up! You would be dying until the five seconds pass to skip the ad. Or you’re watching your favorite T.V show and waste about 15 minutes of commercials. And that’s why outbound marketing’s popularity is decreasing.

Inbound Marketing is 14 years old!

As you can see Inbound Marketing is in its bloom of youth. The concept was coined by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan, founder and CEO, in 2005. Back then, it wasn’t used much, until 2007 its slow effects began to show up.

In 2012, Inbound Marketing started to be noticeable and virally used. Nowadays, Inbound Marketing is the thing and every digital marketing person is familiar with the term. New features are always being discovered and updated everyday.

Most websites now include blog posts, e-books, webinar, videos, so that when you search for a certain topic, you would be able to find it in different forms. These components are carefully designed to:

• Give a Value
• Build Trust
• Ensure Conversion.

Believe it or not: Inbound Marketing leads have a closing rate of 14.6%, comparing to direct email leads with only 1.7%

9 Jaw-dropping Inbound Marketing Stats & Facts

• 1. 68% of inbound marketing strategists believe their strategy provides satisfying outcomes.
• 2. 1/3 of marketers think outbound marketing strategies are ineffective.
• 3. 32% of marketers say the methods of outbound marketing such as paid advertising are a waste of time and money.
• 4. Marketers think video and messaging apps are the future.
• 5. 48% of marketers are planning on investing in YouTube and 39% looking to add Facebook video to their strategy.
• 6. B2B marketers think that the most effective marketing types for moving prospects via the sales funnel is inbound marketing.
• 7. Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads
• 8. 46% of marketers reported that inbound marketing gave a higher ROI
• 9. 59% of marketers said inbound produces higher quality leads for sales

6 Components of Inbound Marketing Strategy

1. SEO

You have probably heard about the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO). If not, no worries, we will guide you through it.

SEO mainly focuses on gaining visibility to your website organically and without paying money. Say, you have a website and you want it to rank in the first 10 results on search engines, how would you do it without paying a penny? And here SEO kicks in!

The aspects of SEO vary from the number of words in your website, to the keywords used, backlinks included or even the website structure.

“Content is King”:

• • Bill Gates said these words 23 years ago and it is still relevant to this very day. The content you have in your website must be valuable to the users.
  • Now, most customers make a good and extensive search before buying a product/service, they are looking forward to reading informative and convincing content to trust you.

Keywords and phrases:

If you want people to find your website among many others, you have to include keywords and phrases in your content. For example, if someone wants to make a low-price cupcake, here cupcake and low-price are important keywords that should be included.

Visual Content:

Internet users now are more drawn to visual content: images, inphographics and videos. It is easier to digest and it saves a lot of time.

2. Content Marketing

It is not only about your product/service details and it is not just about your business and your company. It is about the customers and providing them with thought leadership content. Content that they can benefit from and add a value to them.

After creation, comes sharing. You want to make sure that you share your content taken into consideration the channel you’re sharing it on.

The content shared on Social Media is definitely different than the content shared on emails or blog articles, etc. Your audience here is different from there and your language and tone will be different as well.

3. Social Media

You don’t want to lose the amount of customers you could attract using different Social Media platforms.

Now, B2B companies worldwide are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram to ensure social interaction with the customers. It is, of course, less formal but more friendly and more engaging.

4. Email Marketing

Here you send emails to your list subscribers. These emails must contain relevant and educational content to engage your customers more and raise the conversion rate. Any irrelevant or lousy content will most probably lead to a spam and, of course, you don’t want that.

5. Lead Generation

It is simply spotting potential prospects and cultivating them until they become buyers. This process happens when you offer a value to your customers.

It all starts with search engines; prospects type their needs and issues into the search box. They click in your link and see if you provide them relevant information and a possible solution or not.

If yes, they will contact you because your content manages to highlight their issue, give them information about it and provide

6. Lead Management

Here you want to collect as many data about your customers as possible, as well as, map your customer’s behavior. This data can be used later to know what are exactly the customers’ needs and wishes. Accordingly, you’d modify your content to give your customers a better experience.

How Customer Behavior can Affect Your Inbound Marketing Strategy?

Consumer behavior is simply the reason why a customer chooses to buy this service / product and not that one. To know your consumer behavior is to keep your business safe and secure.

Today, customers are very smart and if you fail them, they will never return back to you. Of course you don’t want to risk this! So make sure that you know your customers well.

1. Do You Provide Enough Info? Think twice

Customers spend an average of 79 days gathering information before making a major purchase. So, reassure them that what you provide has an ultimate power to make their life better.

The first question a customer asks: “Will this service / product solve my issue? Will I feel guilty after purchasing it?”

Eliminate these concerns and negative feelings; and provide sufficient, valuable and honest information. Tell your customers in details how your service / product can benefit them.

2. Don’t Be a Big Mouth

Honest Information builds credibility. Customers keep their guards up when it comes, for example, to TV ads. And that’s because they had been involved in hundreds of shady ads every day and regretted it.

Don’t let your customer be among the 50% of people who often or sometimes feel buyer’s remorse. If you’re going to promise something, make sure you fulfill it.

3. There is NO harm in Being Funny!

Most of customers use the Internet, especially Social Media for entertainment. Content is more shareable when it is entertaining and funny.

Make use of this and provide something that is enjoyable and fun to read. Don’t worry; there is no contradiction between being funny and formal.

4. Don’t Shut off Your Customers with Offensive Ads

Inbound Marketing urges you to conduct an extensive research about the nature of the country / area you work in. Without doing this, you’re jeopardizing your brand.

56% of consumers say “most online ads these days are insulting to my intelligence,”So, any campaigns such as “Wear this watch and feel like a real man” must stop. You’re losing half of the population this way, besides it is very offensive.

5. Indulge Your Customer in Personalized Content

Feeling special is awesome. Everyone wants to feel unique, don’t we all? Produce content that is tailored to meet your customers’ preferences.

90% of customers like custom content, or content created specifically to address their pain points according to their buyer personas So, collect as much data as possible about your customers and provide them with unique content that satisfies their needs.

6. One Bad Review Sticks Forever

88% of consumers trust online reviews as much are personal recommendations. So, how many times have you doubt a service / product just because you read a bad review on it? Don’t be this service / product and make sure that everything you provide is meaningful to your customers. Always do your best and satisfy them.

In a Nutshell
Consumer behavior has an important impact on your Inbound Marketing strategy. Always provide customers with valuable information, credible service, entertaining content, respectful ads and distinctive treatment.

How can all of this benefit your business?

• It saves you loads of money! Small businesses can generate leads from inbound marketing by spending only ⅓ of what it costs them to get a lead from traditional outbound marketing. This is absolutely important for your budget.
• You’re going to spend a lot of time and effort now, but the outcomes are going to last for a long time. By creating evergreen and relevant content, customers will always go back to it whenever needed. You build trust and robust connection with your customers.
• You will always reach new customers because you use many channels. Of course, customers on blog are different from those on social media, etc.
• Get ready to build authority and raise awareness about your brand! Make use of every channel and put your valuable and educational content in front of your customers.

Customers need to see your bran a certain time, until they decide to click on your link. And once they do click, they will expect to see relevant content. Make sure you provide that.

How can you generate leads with Inbound Marketing?

1. Build a well-structured website.

Try to avoid poor navigation and the messy look. This would give a bad impression about your website and would certainly drive your customers off.

2. Include Calls to Action.

Customers need to be guided through your website. If you want them to subscribe to newsletter or download your e-book, you have to make sure that a clear Call to Action is added.

3. Provide a free guide.

Create informative e-books, cheat sheets, checklists, infographics. Make your audience feel that you are in an authority position.

4. Keywords, keywords, keywords.

Without them, customers can’t reach your website.

5. Interact on Social Media.

Ask customers questions and answer their inquiry. Make them feel that you exist and that you’re real and ready to help.

In Conclusion

To sum up, any business now, especially small businesses should include Inbound Marketing in their digital marketing strategy. If you don’t so far, you will so soon.

Most probably you reached Mash World because here we massively depend on Inbound Marketing. Our professional team who is keeping pace with the latest technologies makes sure to use every single tool to provide you with the information and the service you need.