What is inbound marketing?

Since 2005 inbound marketing has not stopped growing, despite being a technique that has been around for years, it is one of the systems that works best in companies. The methodology of this technique is the mix between advertising and marketing to accompany the user from the first contact with the buying process until the final step.

It is the way to make the customer feel loved and this leads to customer loyalty. This set of techniques tries to attract the buyer persona in a friendly way. The form of attraction is almost always useful, relevant and valuable content through different social networks, SEO or blogs. Customers are fed up with the invasive advertising that appears every time they go to watch a series, enter a website… In response to this problem, we have the solution of inbound marketing.

In short, it is a method of attraction different from the classic outbound that all companies use. Thanks to this system, companies manage to find potential customers who love the content created. There are three ways to apply this method:

  • Attract
  • Interact
  • Delight

In addition, this technique not only accompanies the user through the process, but also has numerous advantages for the company. Increased visitors thanks to the content, potential leads in the long term or marketing automation that allows you to provide content of interest to the user.

Stages

inbound marketing has four stages that both the consumer and the business strategy go through. The consumer goes through several stages:

Awareness: the buyer thinks about whether to buy the product or not.

Research: researches the type of product it is, reviews, benefits and disadvantages.

Decision: he makes the purchase decision due to different factors that are important to him.

Action: makes the purchase.

On the other hand, the business strategy has set certain steps that the consumer undergoes to convince him to make the purchase and they are the following:

  • Capture

Capture the attention of a potential customer through valuable content that may be of interest to him. In this way, the company makes itself known from the point of view of an expert and a reliable source.

We will try to attract potential customers through marketing techniques such as social networks, SEO or events. To do this, it is advisable to create strategies of attraction to the content created on the web, blog, social networks and other portals. This way, search engines will index it and more users will have the possibility to read it.

  • Conversion

Maintaining a relationship with the customer benefits the company significantly. If the business provides solutions to the customer’s problems and needs, he/she will feel that he/she is taken care of and will increase the probability of buying the product or service.

Conversion consists of transforming a sporadic user into a potential customer. This is done through personalized content or user-focused questionnaires. In this way, we will obtain the consumer’s data to include them in the company’s database.

Once we have achieved the attraction of a customer we can encourage that conversion through content such as webinars, ebooks, videos and lists.

  • Selling

Through the purchase we can help the customer to experience a successful buying process.

Once customers are already part of the business, they will receive personalized content. The business will find out the user’s interests through lead scoring and lead nurturing.

  • Lead scoring: possibility of a customer making a purchase.
  • Lead nurturing: sending personalized content based on the phase of the purchase cycle and profile.

 

  • Loyalty

This final phase is focused on inbound sales, but its purpose is not only to sell, but also to maintain the relationship with the user, take care of the company’s loyal followers or create content of interest.

Keys

Any B2B company undergoes a buying process that involves the investment of research time on the product or service that can be targeted to a certain audience. It is important to analyze each of the aspects before making a decision as it involves a large economic investment.

Therefore, inbound marketing can help companies to educate customers through valuable content. The creation of white papers, manuals, posts, implementation protocols, tutorials or FAQs can help the user to learn about the laborious role played by the company and convert them into potential customers.

Creating this type of content also provides the company with an intellectual level in their field of work. With inbound marketing they learn to use the web as a way to make themselves visible and multiply their sales opportunities. Here are some elements that cannot be missing in your inbound marketing strategy:

  • Content creation.
  • Personalization.
  • Viralization.
  • Web analytics.
  • Inbound marketing strategy
  • Inbound marketing execution

 

Inbound strategy

Inbound marketing execution

Although inbound marketing is a very good marketing strategy, it is not for everyone. You should keep in mind that if your buying process is short it is better to use another type of strategy such as email marketing, SEM or social ads. This type of actions have a faster response and therefore adapts to your company.

But, this does not mean that no inbound strategy will work for you, for example you can use content marketing to influence your consumers and in this way, when they want to buy a type of product they will choose your company.

How to design it?

There are several steps to follow when starting your inbound marketing strategy. Below we detail them in depth so that you can adapt them to your company.

Knowing the environment

In this type of campaign it is important to know the terrain on which we are going to work. If you want to launch a product on the market and for it to be successful, you must know the environment in depth. To do this, study your target audience and use the product launch to add value to your content. By means of valuable content you will be able to make known the benefits of the product, solve doubts or cover needs.

This step is perfect for sending email marketing, creating ebooks or webinars and thus, publicize your product and your company. Each offer you are going to launch must have its own landing page to be able to measure the conversion, follow-up, downloads or number of customers.

 

Creating the timing and objectives

Timing will be your best friend during a marketing strategy for a specific product. The definition of objectives will be the star element that will lead the rest of the actions. Each launch must have a specific calendar and will not last between 30 to 90 days. Once we are clear about the publication of each content, the next step is the comparison of the return of the campaigns.

 

Driving traffic

We will use different channels to drive traffic to a product/service. Different content will be published in each of them.

 

Blog

In the blog we will dedicate a part of the blog to content related to the campaign. In this way we will publicize the product and the content created.

 

Social networks

We will use social networks to publicize the content to the followers. For example post related to the ebook we have created.

Email

By email we will publish some interesting offers and will be sent to potential customers who are interested in this type of content.

Mature your leads

Inbound marketing is based on giving value to content and making sales without pressure. Therefore, it is recommended that once you see an interested user you send them content and offers. But this relationship should not be forced, it will develop little by little.

 

Closing the campaign

Before closing the campaign, we must carry out an exhaustive analysis to find out if our content has had an effect on users. To do this, the best way to know these data are the metrics. We will make a report with different metrics to examine their behavior.

  • Visits: measures the total number of visits the promotion has had, we must be especially careful with a high number of visits but low conversion.
  • New leads: this is an important element for the sales team. We will know if we have reached a market that we had not reached before.
  • Total sends: we cannot rule out the presentation of existing leads.
  • New customers: number of customers who consider that the campaign used has been good, this data may not be known until some time has passed and we can compare it with other campaigns.

 

How to create your buyer persona?

To determine your buyer persona it is important to base it on reality, even though it is a fictitious ideal customer, it must be represented by real customers. That is to say, the creation of this figure will be done through surveys, research of our customers, potential leads and networking network.

In this way we will know the ideal customer’s psychological and social profile, motivations, objectives, vital needs and demographics. To create a buyer persona based on reality it is necessary to ask the right questions.

  • Who?

In this section we will collect demographic information such as where they live, their age, family situation, personality?

 

  • What?

This will focus on how the customer can help the company achieve its goals and challenges.

 

  • Why?

The survey will be reflected in this section through comments, complaints, different points of view…

 

  • How?

Once we have analyzed the ideal profile for our company, we use all these elements to find out what our customers need. This will help us to create the marketing and sales messages and reach the potential customer.

Difference of inbound and outbound

Although at first glance outbound and inbound marketing may seem to be one and the same technique, this is not the case. Both can coexist in a company’s marketing strategy. However, they are very different.

Outbound marketing, as mentioned above, is part of an older technique that uses traditional media such as radio, television or newspapers. In addition, it focuses mainly on promoting the brand and the product in order to obtain economic benefits.

Another differential point is the communication, which has the purpose of informing in a unidirectional way. In other words, the company provides certain information without the possibility of a response from the user.

Marketing campaigns are another element that distinguishes them. These are dedicated to a general and massive public. Especially so that there is a greater reach among future customers.

On the other hand, inbound marketing is a more current technique that focuses on the user. It uses digital media such as social networks, blogs or SEO. Its purpose is not to focus on the brand but on the content it creates for the user and potential customer.

Communication is based on bidirectionality so that there is greater interaction with the user and he feels part of the company. This type of communication is focused on a target audience that is defined by the company in order to capture it and turn it into a potential customer.

Trends

Inbound marketing continues to experience a boom thanks to its specialization in the user. Therefore, we explain the 10 trends that you should take into account this year to achieve success.

Interactive content.

Users increasingly demand more interactive content, they want to leave behind the habit of reading all the information. Therefore we recommend that you include interaction on your website with videos, quizzes or resources. If you implement this technique you will increase engagement by improving the user experience and attract more qualified leads in different fields.

 

  • Personalization.

In recent years this way of working has been growing steadily. This is thanks to the demand it is experiencing. This trend makes the user feel special by providing exclusive content.

 

Interactive content goes hand in hand with artificial intelligence. Thanks to this method we can offer the possibility of interaction to the user. In addition, we can obtain information about the potential customer to know their tastes and know how to target them.

 

 

Alexa, Siri and Cortana have put voice search in the spotlight. This form of search is gaining more and more followers due to its convenience and flexibility. If you launch a voice search engine, you must take into account SEO and user experience to display clear and concise content.

 

  • Marketing automation.

You will be able to know first-hand what actions your users perform and thus know what type of customer is close to provide valuable content that is among their interests.

 

  • Influencer marketing.

Influencers have become part of many marketing strategies in recent years. This method is increasingly used as it reaches the potential customer quickly and concisely. We must know what our business objectives are in order to select an influencer according to them. In this way, we will address a specific target audience.

 

 

This method helps us to connect with the user and solve their problems and meet their needs quickly. Therefore, we must select the type of chatbot we are going to use carefully so that our consumers feel supported.

 

  • Mobile Marketing.

The computer has taken a back seat. Nowadays most users browse the Internet with their cell phones. Therefore, you should always have responsive content. In addition, if you do not have this type of content, Google will penalize you because it favors websites that can be navigated via mobile.

 

  • Mapping the costumer journey

With this trend we will be able to know the consumer journey. In this way we can accompany him in this process with relevant content for him.

 

  • Featured snippet optimization.

The purpose of this trend is to appear in the featured snippets of Google SERPs. To achieve this goal we must include lists, enumerations and tables in our content.

 

Why integrate it into your business?

It is proven that this technique helps your company, not only to gain visitors but future potential customers. That is the main reason why you should jump into the pool and implement it in your strategy.

Strengthening your web presence, positioning your company in your industry, consolidating business relationships or generating more leads; these are just some of the advantages that the inbound marketing strategy provides you with.

It requires constant monitoring, teamwork and creativity, but the results in both B2C and B2B are numerous. Especially if your company is a B2B it is necessary to consolidate a reputation for your brand and this strategy is perfect for that.

If you have not yet taken the plunge to develop this strategy in your company, do not hesitate to try it to obtain benefits.

 

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