Inbound Marketing is the set of marketing strategies to attract and convert customers using relevant content. In contrast to conventional marketing, in Inbound Marketing, the company does not target customers. However, it explores channels like blogs, search engines, and social networks that can be found.
What is Inbound Marketing?
The idea of Inbound Marketing officially emerged in the United States. It began to gain popularity in 2009, following the book ” Inbound Marketing: Be Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs, “written by Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah.
Since the time, Inbound Marketing has exploded to good effect.
Each day, more businesses of all sizes are using the technique to attract more customers increase sales, and increase their credibility in the eyes of their customers.
In a non-constrained translation, it is said that Inbound Marketing can be defined as attraction marketing.
The primary distinction between traditional marketing that we refer to as Outbound Marketing and Inbound is that in the latter case, the customer is seeking the business, not the reverse.
In other words, actions are carried out to attract the potential customer to your blog or website and, based on this attraction; a whole relationship work is done with that person.
This is accomplished through personalized and written content.
This content can be used to educate your people who read it about your business’s niche, transform your company into a resource on a specific subject relevant to your market and affect the buying decision of potential customers.
What exactly is Inbound Marketing?
The distinction between reality and virtual, the offline and the internet, is more blurred each year. There is no longer any need to say “going on the internet” because the internet is everywhere.
This is why every business can use Inbound Marketing concepts as a strategy.
It is possible to adapt them and use them in any company, using content for entertainment/utilities and brand reinforcement.
Despite the minor variation, Inbound Marketing has reached the same levels as traditional marketing hasn’t.
The most significant difference is that in Inbound Marketing, the company’s marketing section is an investment instead of a price centre.
The main reason behind the above assertion is that every Inbound marketing action can be tracked.
The ability to determine precisely how many people have seen, converted, or purchased from each campaign using online analytics software.
If you know this crucial knowledge, it’s possible to improve campaigns to yield a higher ROI (return on investment).
And it is for this exact reason the most innovative companies in the market have used Inbound Marketing aggressively as a Marketing strategy. In short, Inbound Marketing serves five significant actions:
- Increase the visibility of your business;
- Decrease your customers’ acquisition cost;
- Attract potential customers;
- Generate content that makes a difference;
- Optimize the sales process.
Inbound Marketing: Why Your Business Can’t Be Left Out
Inbound Marketing is beneficial and brings results
The market is buying the idea of applying the Inbound Marketing methodology, mainly because it is 62% cheaper than conventional Marketing – or Outbound Marketing -, which we were used to doing.
Not having an Attraction Marketing strategy for your company can be a determining factor for staying behind your competitors who are already applying the methodology.
The simple fact that people always look out for solutions to their problems on search engines, read more emails on different devices, and surf more time on social networks becomes prerogatives for your company not to be left out.
The Steps of Inbound Marketing
The Inbound Marketing methodology follows a logical sequence of steps. Every successful strategy must go through the following phases: Attract, Convert, Relate, Sell and Analyze.
These are steps that intelligently complement each other. We will explain in detail about each of them below.
To attract
The formula for Inbound Marketing is straightforward. A website without visitors doesn’t generate leads. Without Leads, there are no sales. Thus, any motive to employ this method is in vain.
The primary goal of marketing is “attract” and, without a doubt, it can’t be more different.
The idea behind this approach is quite simple. Instead of wasting time looking for those interested in your market or business, you focus on creating something worthy of the attention of a legitimate audience and therefore attract numerous people who suddenly became curious about the subject.
The result of this is an audience that is much more engaged and likely to consume the product.
There are many ways to make this magic happen, and you need to know a little of each:
- Blog
- Sponsored Links
- Social Networks
To convert
The conversion step fully complements the previous one: The visitor needs to become a Lead to proceed with the purchase process.
In this context, when we talk about conversion, we refer to the user’s action of passing their information in exchange for a reward or benefit, such as an offer of rich material, which we’ll talk about shortly.
Having a site with many visits and no conversions is not very beneficial in terms of Inbound Marketing.
Some several ways and elements that can help you turn your visitors into Leads. Some of them:
- Creating offers
- Landing Pages
- CROP
List
As we know, not all potential customers are at the time of making a purchase.
When we are looking at the buyer’s journey, we are able to see that well-defined steps have been adhered to and the user is “ready” to be approached.
In short, only 3% of your potential market is looking for a solution; that is, it is in the Purchase Decision stage.
Bringing this approach to the day-to-day, within a Leads base, we can consider that the scenario is not very different.
From the production of content focused on various issues and purchase stages, we also attract Leads at multiple locations
This is where the relationship stage in Inbound Marketing comes in: through some strategies that we will present below, we identify the leads and move forward in the journey. That is, we accelerate the purchase process.
Sell
All Lead generation and nutrition work aim to produce demand and generate business opportunities for your company.
In some instances, the selling process happens within the website, while in others, communication between a salesperson and a prospective customer is necessary.
The more intricate the product (, the higher your price), The more sales processes need to be consultative and assist Leads’ nutrition in making the sale.
This paradigm shift, which the Lead is now undergoing a portion of the buying process before contacting sellers, comes with many implications that are changing the business world.
Analyze
One of the significant advantages of Digital Marketing is assessing the results accurately and quantifying the value of your investment based on facts.
The analytical capabilities offered by Digital Marketing are responsible for providing feedback to the entire Inbound Marketing process.
You can track every activity that happens within your visitors’ interactions with your website, posts, and campaigns and make your work more efficient.
Additionally, the whole process has a scope of improvement by identifying a rate that is below expectations to guide marketing efforts. Marketing staff’s work.
Tools support this marketing analytics ability on the market.
For Agencies: How to Sell Inbound Marketing Service
In a context where the internet took over the purchasing processes, what about Digital Marketing services? Inbound Marketing fits this context like a glove for agencies and consultancies.
Imagine that it is possible to create a digital strategy where company X will lend a hand and walk step by step in the purchase journey with its customers, conducting each step, doubt, and conquest.
This is the context of Attraction Marketing facing so many marketing methodologies.
Why Sell Inbound Marketing Service
And for the agency, what are the benefits? We can mention two main ones.
Deliver measurable results
The first is the focus on sales results. Inbound Marketing facilitates return on investment.
In other words, if you prove how profitable your strategy was, what reasons would the client have for terminating the contract?
Revenue increase
The second is the opening of the market itself that working a Digital Marketing of results brings.
You become a provider of business opportunities to your customers, much more strategic than just a provider of communication.
But what exactly is your agency selling?
A machine of predictable and scalable growth. It sounds like a dream product, doesn’t it?
But what services do we create a growth machine with? With services related to a Digital Marketing sales funnel:
- TO GENERATE VISITORS
- TO TURN VISITORS INTO LEADS
- PREPARING OPPORTUNITIES
- TO TURN OPPORTUNITIES INTO SALES
Inbound Marketing Future Projections
Inbound Marketing has already proven to be a methodology that works and delivers measurable results for those who apply it.
Even though it is very new, it is already a strategy present in several companies worldwide.
Therefore, it is never too late to invest in Inbound Marketing, as the future may bring even more possibilities.
As tools and algorithms advance, we will extract more and more information about our Leads. This can provide us with an increasingly convenient and customer-optimized sales process.
Furthermore, with the evolution of the increasingly mobile internet, we will have a personalized and frequent relationship with the customer.
More and more people use different online channels – on other devices – to communicate and search for information.
