Subair Sheriff Oladipo

INBOUND MARKETING : THE DEFINITIVE GUIDE (2020) "The aim of marketing is to know and understand your customers so that your product or service speaks and sells for itself" Those were the words of marketing guru, Peter F. Drucker, in 1947. And considering the current marketing lansdcape, that statement could never be truer! In this post, you are going to learn everything you need to know about inbound marketing – a marketing strategy that priortizes customer experience. You will learn about what inbound marketing entails. And how you can make it work for your business. So, without further ado, let's dive in. WHAT IS INBOUND MARKETING ALL ABOUT? Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that requires you to create and promote valuable content for readers – who are already searching for the content – with the aim of pulling their attention towards your brand or business. It allows you to build strong customer relationships with your customers by providing content that actually prove useful to them. The stronger your relationship with a customer is, the more likely that customer will become a promoter of your business. Over time, you will start to spend less on advertising and acquiring a new customer. The concept of inbound marketing is relatively new in the marketing world. In fact, it was in 2006 that the term 'inbound marketing' was coined (or invented, if you like) – by hubspot CEO and co-founder, Brian Halligan. Since then, inbound marketing has exponentially increased in popularity. It has now become a real challenge to traditional means of marketing (outbound marketing). 68% of inbound marketers​ claim that their strategy works while just 48% – not even up to 50% – of outbound marketers make the same claim about their strategy. From the statistics above, it is obvious that marketers put more trust in their inbound marketing efforts than in their outbound methods. In the next section, I will introduce outbound marketing. And point out reasons why inbound marketing has taken its place as the surefire way to drive qualified leads to your business. INBOUND MARKETING VS OUTBOUND MARKETING Outbound marketing is any form of marketing where you outwardly project your message towards an audience. In this case, you are the initiator of the conversation between you and a prospect. Outbound marketing has been around for ages, and we have all seen or heard of its examples. They include ● Print ads ● Television ads ● Seminars ● Radio ads ● Cold calling ● Email spams But the rise of the internet and social media sparked a change in people's behavior. There began a mass movement into the online space. More and more people became 'plugged in' as the world gradually turned into a global village. The need to take advantage of this new opportunity arose and it was quickly discovered that outbound marketing couldn't cut it. Some of the disadvantages of outbound marketing are: ● Segmentation/targeting​: it is hard to personalize the message your business sends out due to the 'spray and pray' methodology behind outbound marketing. ● Low Returns on Investment (ROI)​ : the high cost of running an outbound marketing campaign means that you'll find it difficult to record a high ROI. In fact, ​studies​ have shown that inbound marketing can bring in up to three times the ROI of outbound marketing. ● Inability To Track Performance​ : the ability to track performance and analyze results gives you the chance to fine-tune your marketing strategies. With outbound marketing, you are mostly guessing and hoping that your message resonates among your audience. However , despite these outbound marketing shortcomings, it will be wrong to say that outbound marketing has become thoroughly ineffective and obsolete. But you should focus more of your company's marketing resources on inbound marketing without, of course, turning a blind eye to its counterpart – outbound marketing. HOW DOES INBOUND MARKETING WORK? The beauty of inbound marketing is that it literally gives you the chance to become your customer's knight in shining armour. You get to appear to your customers at their point of need, prove to them that you can solve their problems. Then you go ahead and solve it! There is something important to note here: your customers come to you. This changes the entire dynamics of the sales process – because your customers are the initiators of the relationship, they are much more likely to buy your product. Think about that for a minute and compare it to how they might feel if you interrupted their browsing or their show on tv with your ads. It's better for them to come, right? There are four stages to an effective inbound marketing campaign. And each stage is part of a self-sustaining cycle that turns leads into customers and then into promoters of your business. The four stages are: ● ● ● ● Attract Convert Engage Delight ATTRACT: This is the stage where you try to create a good first impression of your business. You so this by optimizing the use of every communication channel between you and your target audience. This might be Google or social media. There are three components of the attract stage, namely: ● Content creation ● Search engine optimization (SEO) ● social media CONTENT CREATION ​: There is no better to hook for potential customers than creating content that actually offers value to them. Content that helps solve a problem. These content can include blog posts, infographics, white paper, case studies, videos and so on. Whichever content you decide to create and promote, you should always make sure that it is good enough to keep your prospect wanting more. SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO) ​: Of what use is a (valuable) content if it can't be found online by your prospects? Pretty useless, isn't it? That is why it is necessary to optimize your content for search engines. The higher you rank, the more your chances of being visible online. SEO generally starts with you researching on key words that your customers are most likely to use when trying to get information on a product or topic, and inserting them into your content. Of course, there is more to SEO than that and you will have to devote time to learning it if you plan on promoting your content yourself. SOCIAL MEDIA : No matter the type of business you run, I am sure you could find a social media platform that your target audience generally like to hangout. Social media is a very important tool for creating engagements. You can conduct polls, quizzes, answer customers questions, direct them to your website and so on. The introduction of stories has even taken the level of engagement up a notch. With a few swipes to the left, prospects can be practically seduced into becoming customers. CONVERT STAGE ​: This is the stage where you try to get your customers contact details. You are looking to convert them from prospects to leads. Like the previous stage, there are tactics that can be employed in order to drive more leads. They are: ● Landing pages ● Opt-in forms LANDING PAGES ​: A landing page is the page a your customer is directed to anytime he/she clicks on your ad or link. In most cases, your landing page also doubles as your home page. But it is advisable to create special landing pages that target specific keywords for better results. A landing page should contain a clear customer value proposition and a strong call to action (CTA). Your CTA should be clear on what it wants the visitor to do – whether it is to download a free resource or sign-up for a newsletter or sign-up for a free trial. In return for giving these out, you should ask for contact details (usually an email address). This will be used in the next stage. OPT-IN FORMS ​: Opt-in forms are website forms used to collect customers contact details. When creating an opt-in form, it is important to make sure that it is either short or multi step. Very long opt-in forms will only bore your customers. NURTURE STAGE ​: After getting the contact information you need, you are to begin nurturing the leads you have in order to turn them into customers. This process should not be rushed. It should be spread out over a sufficient period of time while you guide your leads to the point where they feel ready and confident enough to make a purchase. There are two ways to get the most out ot the nurture stage. ● Email marketing ● Customer relationship management (CRM) EMAIL MARKETING ​: Did you know that email marketing has an astonishing 3800% ROI? So, if you have not included it as part of your marketing strategy, then you are really missing out on a chance to drastically increase your profitability. Through your email list, you can regularly send out newsletters, keep your customers abreast of updates concerning your services and even promote new products /services. You can do all this as long as the customer remains subscribed to your email list. And if you have a history of providing valuable content, why would he/she unsubscribe? CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT (CRM) ​: Customer relationship management helps you get the most out of your customer base. When you automate certain processes with your CRM, your conversion rates will most likely be boosted. You can use CRM and automation for your emails, to analyze customer insights and strategize on how to tweak your marketing tactics in order to boost your sales. DELIGHT STAGE ​: Does your current marketing strategy allow customers to slip away after making one (or maybe two) purchases? Well, that's not a good strategy and it is definitely not what inbound marketing is about. Inbound marketing is about you making your customers feel so good that they turn into promoters of your business. In this stage of inbound marketing, you are going to work on increasing the satisfaction levels of your customers. They are four ways you could do that: ● Good customer service ● Surveys ● Social monitoring ● Webinars and live events GOOD CUSTOMER SERVICE ​: Nothing makes a customer happier than seeing his/her complaints addressed in no time. You should make sure that you have different communication channels in place for interactions between you and your customers. SURVEYS : Surveys are a good way to get your hands on useful feedback from your customers regarding your product or service. SOCIAL MEDIA MONITORING : Social media can be a landmine for insights on how your customers feels about your product at any point in time. You can follow (and engage) in conversations concerning your business and your industry in general. WEBINARS AND LIVE EVENTS : You can host Q/A sessions,tutorial sessions, live updates using social media like instagram live or webinar platforms like Webinarjam Your customers will glean something useful from the sessions. And also feel closer to your company because they can now attach a face to the otherwise faceless organization. CONCLUSION A properly implemented inbound marketing strategy will bring your business great rewards. It would help you grow your customer base organically – strong relationships with existing customers will lead to new customers being referred to you. Also, when faced with different choices, most people will resort to the internet in order to get information that will help their decision making. So it makes sense to use a marketing strategy that puts you exactly where you are supposed to be – in the presence of your customer. What do you think of inbound marketing? Let me know in the comments section.