Marketing is a big ocean, and there are so many strategies in this digital marketing world to follow for the growth of the business. Sometimes even we can’t determine which strategy is best for us. To resolve this problem DigiAvtar is working in this field and providing complete digital marketing solutions. You can visit the blog “Marketing Made Simple Blog written by DigiAvtar Team” to find out the best marketing strategies for you and start working on them. More than 40 strategies are described there you can decide which are going to provide growth to your business.
Today, we are going to discuss one other marketing strategy out of those more than 40 marketing strategies, Inbound Marketing.
If you’ve been in the marketing field for a good amount of time, I’m definite you must have heard about this marketing strategy.
Do you know what the meaning of Inbound Marketing Strategy is and how to implement it in the business?
What is Inbound Marketing?
Do you know who coined the term “Inbound Marketing“and when?
CoFounder and CEO of Hubspot, Brain Halligan coined the term in 2006. Before 2005 there was not any concept of Inbound Marketing. The term “Inbound Marketing” started to show on the internet in the early days of 2007. And it started to grow in 2012. Even some digital marketers take Hubspot and Inbound as virtually synonymous because of coining the term “Inbound Marketing” By Brian Halligan.
Nowadays, it’s one of the most famous marketing strategies.
So now the question is what is the meaning of inbound marketing?
Inbound marketing is all about creating customized relevant content according to the consumers’ needs and sharing it with the consumers for appealing to dream customers.
In the inbound marketing strategy, we create valuable content for the potential prospects so that they’ll keep coming to the brand for what they are looking for and eventually becoming loyal customers.
Inbound Marketing strategy is a strategy where customers come to the brands looking for them.
How does this happen?
As we’ve already discussed that we create valuable content in inbound marketing, and through these valuable resources we provide the answers and solutions to those queries and questions customers are looking for.
When they’ll find their solution on a particular brand’s platform, they’ll remember it and keep looking for the brand. Thus way inbound marketing creates brand awareness and attracts new business that ultimately leads to generating leads and revenue.
I hope you’ve understood what inbound marketing is all about.
In simple words, in this process, we target our potential customers even before they are ready to purchase and help potential prospects find our company rather than directly going to the potential clients and outwardly pushing the brands onto prospects in the hope of business and revenue.
Do you want to implement this methodology in your brand to draw visitors and potential consumers in?
Let’s move further and get to know about the different phases of this marketing strategy;
Elements of Inbound Marketing Strategy
Until now, you must have known that inbound marketing is about giving the solutions to the problems that your target audiences are searching for.
So, now the question is how to provide them solutions.
This inbound marketing strategy has been divided into some steps, some marketers follow 4 steps framework and others dilute one step and follow 3 step framework only.
But we are also going to study both of them frameworks so that you can yourself decide which to follow.
Those steps are;
- Attract
- Convert
- Close
- Delight
Marketers who are using 3 step framework dilute the third step close into other steps and use only;
- Attract
- Engage
- Delight
First, let’s understand 4 step framework
4 Step Framework of Inbound Marketing Strategy
There are four steps in Inbound Marketing Strategy’s customer journey; Attract, Convert, Close, and Delight.
Attract
Attracting target audiences to the websites of the businesses through various types of marketing channels and content types is the first phase in getting results. In this first step Attract, we bring in targeted traffic to the brands’ websites. This targeted traffic is the result of different marketing techniques like attracting the right people in the right way at right time through the right marketing channels. As we know we drive traffic by providing valuable content and solutions to the traffic.
So, in what ways we can provide content to our users? I think you know the answer already. We can drive traffic through blogging, targeted SEO, and engaging content on Social Media Platforms.
So, let’s discuss the different channels and ways of attracting or enticing traffic in detail;
Identifying Consumers
Creating a Customer Journey Map and User Persona is the first step in somewhat every marketing strategy. Everyone has different needs and wants, they all have different goals and live in different demographics and their life is being affected by several factors.
So, it is better to identify and target your target audience rather than target everyone and waste your marketing budget.
Creating a buyer persona will help you in building your content marketing strategy, you’ll be able to provide the solutions to those exact problems your customers might come to you looking for.
Videos
Publishing Meaningful and Valuable Videos with Good Script in Storytelling Way will help your users in engaging with your business. We’ve customer personas now, so we can create targeted videos, shorts, or visuals on solutions, tips, and education for the target audience and easily achieve our determining marketing goals.
Create Blogs Enriched with Graphics and Eye-catching Headlines
Create Valuable Educational, Problem-solving, and Entertaining Content through Blogs enriching with graphics like images, infographics, visuals, or Gifs to convey the message properly in a storytelling way.
Eye-catching headlines help in improving click-through rates so that in the same impressions you can get more organic traffic. Infographics provide more value in less content and improve the readability of the blogs. You can also have a look at DigiAvtar’s Blog. Analyse headlines, featured Images and content carefully in our blog posts.
Using Social Media
You can measure the importance of social media yourself by calculating the time you spend yourself on social media like FB, Instagram, or Snapchat.
Do you know 63% of the world’s total population is using smartphones and out of that 63%, 93% of people are using social media to spend time and interact with other people?
That is why most marketers are focusing on Inbound Marketing and Mobile Inbound Marketing.
Inbound marketing is giving users what they are searching for, and Mobile Inbound marketing is giving users what they are seeking along with optimizing platforms for mobile devices.
Social media is a very important marketing tool for engaging with your users, people share their thoughts, and how they feel on social media or in comment sections. So, social media helps you in understanding how your target consumers feel about your brand, products and services.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO
Search Engine Optimization helps you in ranking higher on google searches by optimizing your content and making it more relevant to the user’s search intent and mobile-friendly.
Mastering search engine optimization is the key to bringing hassle-free organic traffic. With the help of a good search engine optimization strategy, you will naturally rank higher on the search engine results pages (SERPs).
When users will search for your brand, services or products and if you’re ranking higher than others, then the chances of getting visits to your websites or any other platforms are higher.
You can also feature in the Featured Snippets in Google Search Results if you are providing high-quality content. High-quality content helps in improving Domain Authority, Page Authority, Page Rank and CPR score.
So, building high-quality content can give your inbound marketing strategy wings to rank higher and get more leads than others.
Google Ads
Google Ads also represent inbound marketing.
Must be wondering how advertising campaigns can represent inbound marketing.
Earlier I told you that in inbound marketing strategy users come to you looking for solutions, and answers.
Well, I’m still there, not trying to change what I said earlier!
How?
Let me explain!
What really happens in inbound marketing?
Users seek for the products, services, solutions, and answers to their problems and visit the brands.
The same happens in Google Advertising!
When they search for any queries google provides them solutions by putting the Advertised Content Above organic.
This way advertising is being done but still, users are coming to the brands looking for them, brands are not going to the users. That is why Google Advertising is an Inbound Marketing Strategy.
So, we’ve discussed the 1st phase of the 4-step framework of inbound marketing strategy which is Attract. Now we know that we can attract visitors in several ways such as through ads, video, blogging, social media, content strategy, SEO, graphics etc.
Now, let’s move ahead to the next step which is Convert!
Convert
The second phase of 4 step framework of inbound marketing strategy is Convert. In the first phase “Attract” we attracted traffic from different resources, now it’s time to convert them into leads.
As we all know we’re providing the solutions to users’ problems for you but it’s time to ask them something in exchange for free valuable resources. This is where we can demand their contact details from them.
It helps in keeping people coming back to the brand’s website over and over again. We can ask them for their details with the help of the following gated content;
Online Forms
You can ask for details from your users in online forms. You can ask them for their name, mobile number and email in the contact form. Anyone who’s filling out a form is willing to connect with your brand in future. So, you can engage with them later on different occasions
Optimized Landing Pages
Landing pages are an important part of sales funnels. The landing page contains so much information relating to particular services, products, or lead magnets. When your target consumers visit your website looking for the answers then they are being redirected from there with the help of a call to action. Once they click on that call to action they land up on the landing page.
Here, you can put a form or can ask for contact information in terms of free resources you want to provide your users as a lead magnet. You can visit this blog for 20 different lead magnet ideas.
Optimize your landing page with proper information, testimonials, call to action, frequently asked questions, benefits, and other important aspects.
Call to Actions
A call to action is a very crucial part of your complete sales marketing funnel. If they are not being used intelligently you might lose a lot of your targeted potential users.
They are an important part of the lead nurturing process. Always keep your call to action precise, concise and ONE CTA per landing page to keep your users on a single track, and not make them confused.
This way, when you have a single, precise, concise call to action, they’ll give you their details in no time.
Analytics and Reporting
Analytics is another important part of the whole sales process. Analyse the whole attracting strategies you’re performing in the “Attract” phase.
By doing this, you can make a report about everything and you’ll get to know from which strategy you’re getting more traffic, what is working and what not. And you’ll be able to focus on strong areas most and improve on weak spots.
We’ve covered the second phase which is Convert, now let’s move ahead with the 3 steps of 4 steps inbound marketing strategy which is Close.
Close
Closing is the state where the converted leads are going to make a purchase for products or services, and close the deal with the brand.
A lead takes time in nurturing and becoming loyal customers. Always stay connected with your leads and solve their problems through the process of converting to a sale.
You can always can in touch with your converted leads with the help of the following resources and tools;
Focused Emails
You’ve collected details of your users in the second phase which is Convert. And along with the information you’ve gotten permission to send them emails about the offers and services. Now, that you’ve permission to send them emails, you need to send them tailored emails according to the details they provided you in the form of a second phase Convert.
Provide Solutions to them according to their needs and don’t spam by sending them irrelevant informational Emails.
Customer Relationship Management Tools
Customer Relationship Management tools help in maintaining relationships with the users and keeping all the users’ information. A CRM (Customer Relationships Management) Tool manages clients’ data and their interactions with the sales team.
If we have the information about their interactions with the sales team, then we can determine what desired results consumers are willing to gain from the brand.
Marketing Automation (Use of Autoresponders)
Marketing Automation is a very important part of any marketing strategy. If you’re able to automate tasks then you’ll save a lot of resources and costs.
With the help of marketing automation, the engagement ratio can be increased drastically with a good personalized experience.
You can also automate your email marketing campaigns into drip marketing formation. Drip marketing is the term when we send multiple emails in accordance with the previous one.
The next and last phase of 4 step framework of inbound marketing strategy is Delight. Let’s discuss it.
Delight
Your consumer has made a sale from you doesn’t mean that you need not do anything else further.
Making a purchase doesn’t end the sales process. If you want to make your customers loyal to your brand then you need to provide them assistance with the products and services and keep communicating with them.
Once you’ve won the hearts of your customers, they’ll never stop talking about you. And they will promote your brand as brand advocates.
This phase contains operations to delight customers such as generating smart valuable content, email marketing, conversations inbox, attribution reporting, and marketing automation.
A good marketer never stops all marketing at once, so you also need to continuously provide them with the absolute best valuable content you can. This way you’ll get more customers from word-of-mouth marketing.
So, with the delight, we’ve covered the 4th phase of 4 step framework of Inbound Marketing strategy. Now, let’s move ahead and talk about some tips to remember in Inbound Marketing Strategy.
3 Step Framework of Inbound Marketing Strategy
As we’ve already discussed two phases of 3 step framework in 4 step framework of inbound marketing strategy. But let’s discuss a little bit about them
Attract
Provide valuable resources to your users to attract them to your brand. In this phase, you can make use of advertising, video marketing, blogging, content marketing strategy, search engine optimisation, and social media.
Engage
In this phase, you engage with your users with different methods along with providing them insights and solutions to their pain points. In this phase, you can make use of lead magnets, email marketing, lead flows, lead management, conversational bots, and marketing automation.
Delight
Delight is the last phase of 3 step framework where you need to stay connected with your current customers delighting them with valuable content to solve their problems in after making the purchase.
So, with the delight, we’ve covered the 3rd phase of 3 step framework of Inbound Marketing strategy. Now, let’s move ahead and talk about some tips to remember in Inbound Marketing Strategy.
Tips to remember in Inbound Marketing Strategy
On the basis of the discussion so far, we can summarise everything in some tips. These tips will help you in building a successful inbound marketing strategy. The tips are;
- Define short-term and long-term business goals and buyer personas
- Having Content Calendar in place for 1 year in advance
- Couple your inbound marketing strategy with mobile inbound marketing strategy and perform mobile optimization on the website
- Choose perfect Delivery platforms
- Provide valuable content at every stage of a sales funnel and offers to make them provide contact details
- Scoring leads, converting them into clients, and nurturing them always
- Make your contact details easily accessible
- Leverage Social Media and Social Proofs
- Build a blog to solve the queries through the blog posts
- Personalize content according to different user personas
- Make the Storytelling part of your writing style
- Analyse, make reports Optimize your Campaigns Accordingly & Test Different Campaigns
- Keep Improving
So, we’ve discussed different tips you should remember in your inbound marketing strategy. Now let’s get together with the benefits of inbound marketing
Benefits of Inbound Marketing
We know that every marketing has its own benefits, so as inbound marketing. The benefits inbound marketing provides us are;
- It costs 61% less than outbound marketing strategies
- Brings organic traffic and increases visits to the website by 4x in 1 year and 12x in the next year
- According to 41% of worldwide marketers, it shows a noticeable ROI.
- 10x more effective for conversion than outbound.
- Put customers in the driver’s seat, they come to the brand’s search for them
- Empowering for Customers
- It’s not just about sales, but about helping them.
- Connect with the audience that is genuinely interested in what we want to convey
- Multiply leads by 5x in 1 year and 14x in 2 years.
- Reach the right audience, in the right way, at the right time, in the right place.
- Increase trust and loyalty
- Decrease dependability on one channel
- Market effectively in every segment whether it is B2B or B2C
We’ve seen the benefits of the inbound marketing strategy, there may be tons of other benefits of this marketing strategy.
Are you feeling confident about your inbound marketing strategy now? We’ve covered somewhat everything about inbound marketing, so let’s conclude it.
Wrapping Up
In conclusion, an inbound marketing strategy draws in the right people with valuable content and establishes communication with them. To keep customers engage businesses provide insightful and problem-solving content aligning to their pain points and goals. Even after the client has made a purchase from the brand, it supports providing help and assistance to empower customers to find success.
Inbound marketing is also about being creative with valuable insightful content. You may provide any type of content according to the consumers’ needs from the following creative content ideas; blog posts, videos, research papers, ebooks, white papers, infographics, webinars, news articles, social media creatives, and presentations.
Still, waiting?
Do you know the hardest part of any marketing strategy?
The hardest part of any marketing strategy is the easiest.
Not taking the first steps!
So, start your own inbound marketing strategy for your brand. Don’t waste time on where to start, you’ve everything in this blog that can guide you to build your own inbound marketing strategy.
Please let us know in the comment section how are you going to use the inbound marketing strategy in your brand!
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