Looking to attract new business but not sure where to start? Depending on your clientele, you may want to focus your efforts on inbound marketing. But what is inbound marketing and how can it work for you? Instead of broadcasting to the customer, as traditional outbound marketing does, inbound marketing focuses on creating reasons for the customer to come to you. HubSpot coined the term inbound marketing back in 2006, which they say can be applied in three ways: attract, engage and delight.
Inbound Marketing Applications
Attract: First, you have to attract the right people to your business with valuable content and conversations that make them trust and want to engage with you. You can accomplish this in different ways, such as through:
Engage: Next, you need to present solutions to problems your customers may have, aligning with the goals they want to accomplish. Case studies can be invaluable at this stage. Make your prospects want to build a long-term relationship with your brand. Impress upon your sales team that they are selling solutions rather than products, ensuring the customers’ needs are met and increasing the value of your interactions.
Engaging customers can also be achieved through:
- Paid search, wherein you do not pay until someone clicks on your ad in a search engine.
- Gated content offers—such as case studies, infographics and other in-depth information—for which people have to provide their contact information to gain access.
Delight: And finally, even after the purchase, you have to keep your customers happy. A lot of this has to do with customer service, which chatbots or surveys can assist with, helping you to garner new information with every interaction.
Another important source of information is your company’s social media pages. Often, customers provide feedback, leave a review or ask questions about your products or services. Being responsive to these interactions encourages a larger and more robust following and increased customer satisfaction.
Is Inbound Marketing Right for my Business?
We get this question a lot. Businesses want to know if this will help their bottom line, if it’s worth the investment and when they can expect to see the results.
Inbound marketing may be right for you if:
- Your product is “highly considered.” If you have a product or service that people have to think about before they buy, inbound marketing may be a good option. The sticker price, time commitment and level of approval could be indicators of who sells a “highly considered” product or service.
- You spend a lot of money on lead generation. If you are already spending big on lead generation services, inbound marketing can help convert those leads turn into more substantial prospects faster. With inbound tools, you can easily track and nurture customers through the buyer’s journey.
- You have a meaningful differentiator. Having something that makes you different and unique only makes inbound marketing more successful. This is the hook that drives people to your business and eventually turns them into customers.
- You are ready for a culture shift. Inbound marketing isn’t just about getting the customers to you, it is also about making their experience with you better. Everyone on your team needs to adopt the strategies of inbound marketing for it to work.
- You have high-value products and a long sales cycle. Inbound marketing is especially useful for businesses with high-value conversions and long sales cycles. In these cases, it makes sense to spend time nurturing each prospect through the buyer’s journey and sales cycle due to the potential payoff at the end.
- You understand that sales won’t happen overnight. This isn’t something you try for a few months to see how it goes. Like we said earlier, this is a culture change, and it will take time for your employees to get used to it and for the customers to come to you. Inbound marketing is not a quick fix; it is a long-term strategy that can yield impressive results when done right.
How We Can Help
If you want to employ inbound marketing in your business, we can help. Our experts employ HubSpot as the tool to bring all the necessary components together to create inbound marketing campaigns that attract, engage and delight your target audience. The benefits include:
- Analytics and insights that lead to a greater ROI.
- A clear focus on the right channels and offers for your target audience that result in greater lead conversions.
- Insights about your target audiences with buyer personas.
- Shortened sales cycle and improved sales workflows.
- Lower cost-per-lead.
We have experienced in-house inbound marketing experts on our team, are HubSpot certified and ready to put our know-how to work for you. Contact us today to find out how we can help.
