Generally speaking, what do you think of when you hear the word marketing? Probably commercials, junk mail, spam, and insanely annoying internet ads. Right? Well, that type of marketing is called interruption marketing, and it has been proven over the years to be not as effective as it was in the beginning. A more effective, holistic approach to attracting customers and engaging with your audience is inbound marketing.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is a technique for attracting customers to buy your products and services via content marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and branding. Inbound marketing takes a completely different approach compared to traditional marketing techniques. The main goal of inbound marketing is to create high-quality content that focuses on helping solve the problems customers may face. When creating this content it is crucial to understand the pain points of your audience; therefore, you can begin building trust and meaningful relationships with potential customers.
But how do you do this? Well, through three major stages. These stages are:
- Attract: Attract prospects through helpful content such as blog posts and other informational resources.
- Engage: Engage them through conversational tools tailored to their needs, such as email campaigns.
- Delight: Delight them by continuing to act as an empathetic and authoritative voice by showing you care and offering them information and products they need.
At this point, we know what you’re thinking - isn’t the search engine optimization on your website good enough to reach your desired audience? Well, while SEO is a vital aspect of getting your website found online, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. You need more than just traffic; you need the right traffic. You need people who are a good fit and are likely to buy from you. To make the greatest impact on your business, you need to pair your search engine optimization efforts with a well-thought-out inbound marketing strategy, so you can attract, engage, and delight your audience.
However, when you implement SEO and inbound marketing strategies for your website, always keep in mind that there’s no such thing as instant gratification. You could say that your SEO and inbound marketing journey is a marathon rather than a sprint. And, if you don’t start working towards your goals now, you’ll be much further behind in the long run. Then you’ll have to focus on catching up, which can turn into a real mess in the end. And no one wants that.
Benefits of Inbound Marketing
Cost-Effective
Traditional marketing tactics, such as billboards or TV advertisements are outdated and expensive. With inbound marketing, you are focusing on creating content that resonates with your audience and encourages them to buy your product or service. In addition, when having an effective inbound marketing strategy you can scale as your business grows; therefore, you only pay for what you want and need.
Long-Term Value
The content created for inbound marketing has better usability than outbound content. Once you have created content such as blogs, eBooks, case studies, or whitepapers, you can update this content to keep it relevant. Doing so will keep your audience engaged and show that your business stays up-to-date on industry trends while fostering long-term relationships with your customers.
Quality Leads
Because inbound marketing is targeted advertising, you will generate quality leads for your business. Once your business understands the buyer’s journey, you can create content that will assist in moving customers through the process to purchase your product or service ultimately. One of the most important aspects of generating these quality leads is to create compelling content that solves problems for your customers. After that, you can advertise this content through online advertisements, social media, email sequences, etc.
Conclusion
What’s the lesson of the day here, folks? Inbound marketing brings people to you by offering optimized content they’re already searching for online. No fads, no gimmicks: just giving your customers what they want. Pretty cool, huh? So, if you’re a small business owner trying to grow your audience, download our free eBook, The Art of Inbound Marketing, to learn more about how inbound marketing can take your business to the next level! Or, if you want to learn more about how Greyphin can assist with your inbound marketing needs, contact us today to speak with an expert.
