Although we specialize in inbound marketing and may have a bias towards it, we can confidently state that it offers the most efficient ROI for your company’s marketing budget.
What are the advantages of inbound marketing? It’s a strategy with long-term benefits that will definitely result in lead generation, customer acquisition, and client engagement year after year.
The idea of inbound marketing, which HubSpot introduced in 2005, is revolutionizing business by connecting brands and customers. This is due to the fact that today’s digitally-savvy buyers hold the power.
Consider the fact that online platforms offer the opportunity for individuals to conduct their own research and contemplate their purchasing decisions well ahead of any interaction with your organization. This is a common practice that many have engaged in or continue to do so.
When contemplating a purchase, do you immediately call a sales representative for further details? Absolutely not. The more common action is to grab your smart device and use Google to conduct your own research.
1. Simplify Sales and Marketing Work
By implementing inbound marketing, your sales and marketing teams collaborate to produce and disseminate influential content. The inbound sales staff serves as the primary resource for determining what customers require during various stages of the purchasing process. Based on that information, your marketing team can generate targeted material that instructs, addresses inquiries, and resolves issues.
A total of 68% of customers devote time to going through material published by brands that intrigue them. Through collaboration, sales and marketing can employ this material to draw in prospective buyers, boost the rate of successful transactions, foster leads, promote sales, and uphold the loyalty of current patrons.
2. Digital Approach for the Digital Era
Content does not have equal value in terms of conversion. Your business may be performing exceptionally well, with a satisfied client base and a great product or service. However, the information might not have spread outside of your inner circle of employees and clients.
Your excellent work and satisfied customers alone are not enough to attract leads. It is vital to produce content that showcases your ability to potential clients. Nowadays, we are inundated with various kinds of content such as news, social media, and entertainment. The latest addition to this mix is inbound marketing, which presents creative advertisements.
Nowadays, people consume information in this manner, and in all honesty, some of the most effective content is disguised as advertising. Nonetheless, it is quite effortless to distinguish between content or videos that are advertisements and those that genuinely portray a brand. The essential element is authenticity; your content must be genuine and relevant.
GREAT content has a great advantage as it can be easily shared by both you and your audience on the digital platform. Creating and distributing content through an inbound strategy can increase brand recognition, making your company known worldwide.
3. Educate Your Target Audience
The modern buyer conducts thorough research prior to buying, seeking out as much information as possible to ensure a wise choice. Studies reveal that a majority of B2B buyers, ranging from 57 to 70 percent, engage in research prior to reaching out to vendors.
By conducting some research and creating distinct buyer personas, it is possible to determine where your desired audience is seeking information. This will enable you to strategically disseminate your content to increase its visibility among them.
4. Generate Quality Traffic and Leads
Active blogs can result in a substantial increase in high-quality leads for companies. By utilizing inbound marketing, you can cultivate connections that ultimately result in sales. Creating content tailored to the needs and concerns of your desired audience draws in valuable visitors to your website.
By creating high-quality content, you can attract an increasing number of visitors, but it is important to be equipped with the appropriate measures such as CTAs, landing pages, forms, etc. to lead them towards conversion.
You need to keep applying the various techniques of the inbound approach until your audience turns into customers who actively advocate for your brand. By utilizing inbound strategies, you can increase the number of leads you generate by 54 percent compared to outbound methods.
Many businesses strive to acquire new customers, sometimes resorting to unusual methods to generate leads. However, simply throwing a large net into the sea may lead to a lot of worthless leads, similar to catching numerous unwanted items when aiming for a prized marlin.
When executed effectively, inbound marketing generates customers who are not only high-quality leads, but also highly receptive to purchasing. Such customers have passed through your funnel from the very beginning and have demonstrated their worthiness as quality leads that warrant your attention.
PPC advertising can be quite expensive and may attract visitors who are not relevant to your business. Moreover, it can be a waste of time and resources for your sales team to sift through a large volume of irrelevant leads that you paid for.
A notable advantage is that the fresh leads obtained are not limited in duration; employing a thorough inbound marketing strategy ensures enduring partnerships. It is crucial to view inbound marketing as a prolonged commitment, rather than a short-term endeavor.
The return on investment for inbound marketing is not immediate and requires patience. You may wonder about the duration of inbound marketing. While some may purchase right away, others may take longer, but having established confidence will ensure repeat business. Moreover, inbound leads often leave favorable feedback, which generates more customers through a positive cycle.
5. Reach New Markets and Audiences
Because inbound marketing is conducted exclusively online, you can expand your audience and broaden your reach by implementing various types of campaigns. Consider adding “social media services” to your product lineup if you specialize in selling “SEO services” online.
When using traditional marketing methods, it is difficult to segment and solely target customers who require either TV or radio advertising, as their profiles are usually similar.
With inbound marketing and PPC in particular, you reach people looking for social media services by targeting only those keywords in your PPC campaigns. This is just a simple example but the fact that you can select exactly and in great detail who will see your content has huge advantages and that’s why the ROI is higher.
The approach is focused on a specific audience, tailored to their needs, and avoids marketing to a broader population with the expectation of sparking interest in your offerings.
6. It’s Immediate
A customer searches for a product online and discovers your website through Google. Upon reading your informative content, they gain a comprehensive understanding of the product and perceive your store as trustworthy and secure, ultimately resulting in their decision to make a purchase with you.
Achieving this ideal scenario may not always be possible, but it can be attained through inbound marketing. However, when using outbound marketing, the process becomes more complex and immediate results are not guaranteed due to the additional steps involved.
Let’s consider radio advertisements. Suppose a person hears a product advertisement while driving and becomes interested. Later, if they remember the ad, they may search the internet at home to find the advertised products.
Although he may follow the inbound marketing approach (as described earlier), there’s a chance he won’t make a purchase because it wasn’t something he was actively seeking, unlike when he searched for it on Google.
7. Build Authority and Brand Awareness
Although the aforementioned advantages have focused on expenditures and profits, it is not the sole marketing objective for corporations. There may be instances where one aims to establish their brand and enhance public knowledge about their enterprise or modify people’s viewpoints regarding their merchandise.
Utilizing inbound marketing not only allows your brand to be recognized and shared, but ultimately generates future leads and sales.
Utilizing several tools such as social media, PPC, SEO, quality blog posts, infographics, slideshows, among others, can help expose your brand to numerous potential customers and inform them about your company without being obvious that you aim to influence their perception of your brand.
When discussing the topics of authority and perception, it is worth examining the success of HubSpot in the realm of inbound marketing. Through extensive investments in education regarding this topic, they have become widely regarded as the foremost authority on the subject.
Undoubtedly, this has a favorable effect on the sales of their promotional instruments.
Inbound Marketing Techniques
Which techniques are most effective in utilizing the benefits of inbound marketing mentioned above?
Crafting a blog post involves artistic creativity.
While it may come as a shock to a few, blogging is undoubtedly the most efficient inbound marketing strategy. As per data provided by inbound marketers, blogging yields a return that is 13 times higher than any other approach.
Admittedly, it may seem too good to be accurate. However, it is indeed a reality. Yet, to utilize blogging as a compelling inbound marketing strategy, there exists a vital element to consider.
The quality of content
When blogging, it is crucial to ensure that the content created is of excellent quality.
The aim is to offer significant worth to potential customers in order to move them to the following stages of the inbound marketing process. This involves capturing the reader’s interest, encouraging them to interact with the material, establishing trust and ultimately converting them in a manner that results in their contentment and happiness.
Become proficient in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
To elevate content from good to great, it’s imperative to incorporate SEO as a critical sales channel. Utilizing SEO tactics can result in higher Google rankings, increased traffic, and improved visibility for your content. Increased rankings are directly proportional to higher traffic, which ultimately leads to generating more leads and sales.
Provide them with incentives.
Providing incentives is crucial for convincing people to take further action even if SEO helps you reach a larger audience. These incentives can vary from an informative eBook, complimentary guide, reduced prices, or a trial offer to experience your services.
Once individuals accept your offers, it is assumed that they have gone through the initial stages of being interested and engaged. It is now your responsibility to establish their trust and satisfaction levels. Breaching their trust with false promises will have a negative impact on their level of satisfaction, making it impossible for any incentives to have the desired effect.
A fantastic website is necessary.
Remember that your website is the foundation of your blogging and content. Even if you have exceptional content, your website must meet certain standards in order to succeed. Failure is inevitable if your hosting platform falls short.
In today’s digital age, a top-performing website must possess qualities such as speed, a neat design, compatibility with mobile devices, optimization for search engines and social media, and consistent updates with new and relevant content.
A plan for “call to action” is required.
At the call to action stage, you prompt your audience to engage in an activity that benefits your business, such as signing up for your newsletter, tracking your brand on social media, leaving feedback on your content, enrolling in a premium service, or buying your goods.
Whatever your call to action goals are, you need to make sure that these are reflected in your website design and content.
Exhibit your knowledge and skills on other web platforms.
As you create content for your website and establish your brand or personal image, you can benefit from the reputation and traffic of other websites. To achieve this, you can engage in guest posting on websites that can offer genuine value to your business beyond improving SEO.
Despite being a challenging endeavor that demands a considerable investment of time and resources, it presents an excellent chance to expand your reach and establish connections with potential clients who may have otherwise been inaccessible.
