For many years, businesses only practiced one type of promotion: outbound marketing or advertising. The idea was to hunt down customers and show them what you had to offer in the hope that they would buy what you were selling. At the beginning of the 21st century, marketers pioneered a new method of finding and connecting with customers : inbound marketing .
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing turns traditional marketing efforts on their head. While outbound marketing involved buying ad space, purchasing email lists, and hoping for the best, inbound marketing shifts the focus to quality content .
By offering relevant content, you can direct people to your business, where they will discover your products and services. By creating content that interests your customers, you attract more qualified leads than with a stand-alone ad-based approach. This is achieved by using earned media and owned media.
Owned media Owned media are marketing channels that your belgium telegram lead company has control over. This can be a website, YouTube channels, social media profiles, whitepapers, email marketing campaigns or blogs. What content you publish, how often you publish it and where you publish it is entirely up to you.
Earned media is content published on external sites or outlets. It can include appearances in industry publications, articles, awards, press mentions, posts about your brand by other social media accounts, online reviews, and conversations about you on online forums. While earned media is published by another source, it is usually something that is corroborated by the company itself.
Benefits of doing Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing has a wide variety of benefits, all of which have been proven to work well in the digital age. Inbound marketing can:
Attract more qualified leads , giving you a higher percentage of sales per click.
Keeping customers coming back to your site again and again.
Maintain interest. Evergreen content can live on your site forever and continually deliver results.
Provide great educational resources to your audience.
Help position your brand as a leader in your sector.
While most tactics are free, an effective inbound marketing strategy requires many hours of work. Plus, results don’t come quickly. Unlike sales announcements or special discounts, inbound marketing strategies are long-term projects . They require time and commitment to work properly and see the desired results.
How to implement an inbound marketing strategy
1. Know your audience
Inbound marketing campaigns rely on detailed descriptions of customers, known as buyer personas. These give a backstory and a face to the members of the audience you want to reach. Once you know the buyer persona that represents the majority of your customer base, you can create content that speaks to them .
2. Create and optimize your website
Deciding to build your website yourself versus hiring someone to do it for you is often the more cost-effective option. But having a good website is a must , especially since you need it to be structured for content marketing. Your website is the hub around which all of your inbound marketing will revolve. Choose strategically what you're going to put on your website.
3. Start writing on your blog
Ideally, your blog will appeal to your buyer personas by addressing a need they have and offering value. Create a blog about topics that answer the questions your audience is asking in their buyer journey. Don’t be afraid to pull back the curtain and share your expertise.
4. Be active on social media
You need to be on the social media platforms where your target audience is. Determine how often you should post on each platform. Share your blog posts, which will encourage your followers to click through to your website, read the article, and continue exploring the rest of the sections. Interacting with your audience is key to building relationships.
5. Create long-form content
Long-form content, like whitepapers or ebooks, are very important for your inbound marketing strategy. They give customers a sense of your knowledge and experience in the industry. You get their name and email address (and more, if you want) so you can get a sense of who they are.