Since 2005 inbound marketing has not stopped growing, despite being a technique from years ago, it is one of the systems that works best in companies.
What is inbound marketing?
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 the loyalty of this, a set of techniques try 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 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.
Stages of inbound marketing
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:
- Acquisition
Capture the attention of a potential customer through valuable content that may interest 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, for this, it is advisable to create strategies to attract content created on the web, blog, social networks.
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, the customer will feel that he/she is taken care of and the probability of purchase will increase.
Conversion consists of transforming a sporadic user into a potential customer, this is done through personalized content or questionnaires focused on the user.
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 provide help the customer to experience a successful buying process.
Once customers are already part of the company, they will receive personalized content, the business will find out the user’s interests through lead scoring and lead nurturing.
- Lead scoring: the 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, taking care of the company’s loyal followers.
Keys
Any B2B company undergoes a buying process that involves the investment of research time in the product or service that can be directed towards a certain audience.
It is important to analyze each of the aspects before making a decision as it involves a large economic investment.
Inbound marketing can be used by companies to educate customers through valuable content. The creation of white papers, manuals, post, implementation protocols, among others.
The creation of content also provides 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.
Some elements that cannot be missing in your inbound marketing strategy:
- Content creation.
- Personalization.
- Viralization.
- Web analytics.
Inbound marketing strategy
Inbound marketing execution
Inbound is not for everyone, you must take into account that if your buying process is short it is better to use another type of strategy such as email marketing, SEM or social ads.
But, this does not mean that no inbound strategy will work for you, for example use content marketing to influence your consumers and so, 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.
- Know 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 to the market and be successful you must know the environment in depth.
Study the target audience and use the product launch to give added value to your content, through valuable content you will be able to publicize the benefits of the product.
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 should have its own landing page to measure conversion, tracking, downloads or the number of customers.
- Create the timing and objectives
The calendar 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.
- Drive traffic
We will use different channels to drive traffic to a product/service, in each of them we will publish different content:
- Blog
In the blog we will dedicate a part 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 followers, for example post related to the ebook we have created.
By email we will publish some interesting offers and they 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 the content and making sales without pressure, a relationship should not be forced, it will develop gradually.
- Closing the campaign
Before closing the campaign we must carry out an exhaustive analysis to know if our content has had an effect on users. We will make a report with different metrics to examine their behavior:
- Visits: measures the total number of visits that 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.
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 such as:
- Who?
In this section we will collect demographic information such as where they live, their age, family situation, personality?
- What?
This will be focused on how the customer can help the company achieve its objectives 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 between 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, but 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.
It focuses mainly on promoting the brand and the product in order to obtain economic benefits.
Another differential point is communication, which aims to inform in a unidirectional way, i.e. the company provides certain information without the possibility of a response from the user.
The 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, using digital media such as social networks, blogs or SEO. Its purpose is not the brand but the content.
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, so 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 everything, so 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, thanks to the demand it is experiencing. This trend makes the user feel special by providing exclusive content.
- AI
Interactive content goes hand in hand with artificial intelligence, thanks to this method we can provide the possibility of user interaction.
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, as 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 begun to be part of many marketing strategies in recent years, this method is increasingly used because it reaches the customer quickly and concisely.
We must know what our business objectives are to select an influencer according to them, in this way, we will address a specific target audience.
- Chatbots
This chatbots method helps us to connect with the user, solve their problems and meet their needs quickly. Therefore, we must select one in which they feel supported.
- Mobile Marketing
The computer has taken a back seat, nowadays most users surf the Internet with their cell phones. Therefore, you should always have responsive content.
If you do not have this type of content, Google will penalize you because it puts websites that can be navigated using a cell phone first.
- Mapping the costumer journey
With this trend we can know the journey that the consumer makes, so 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’s proven that this technique helps your company, not only to gain visitors but also potential customers, that’s the main reason why you should implement it in your strategy.
It requires constant monitoring, teamwork and creativity, but the results in both B2C and B2B are numerous.
If your company is a B2B it is necessary to consolidate a reputation for your brand and this strategy is perfect for it.
If you have not yet launched to develop this strategy in your company, do not hesitate to try it for profit.
