Simply put, inbound marketing is the process that helps potential clients find your business online. Customers can form brand preferences even before making a purchase decision, and early contact can prepare them for sale.
Content marketing, blogs, events, search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and other methods, like those mentioned above, increase brand awareness and attract new customers.
The methods you use make it appear that you aren’t selling to them, so you’re more likely to have them buy from you. Inbound marketing produces content that is entertaining, educational, and consumer-friendly.
The right inbound marketing strategy can result in an impressive return on investment over traditional marketing, disrupting prospects instead of letting them engage freely.
Consumers who find your business this way are more likely to give you a positive opinion and use your services in the future. What’s even better? Rather than relying on budget, inbound marketing uses organic leads entirely.
Inbound marketing vs outbound marketing
Traditional marketing is characterized by a very general message to reach the greatest number of people possible. On the other hand, using traditional marketing tactics makes it impossible to be relevant to a variety of specific needs and challenges.
In this case, inbound marketing can be considered somewhat superior to outbound marketing. Some distinct features of the two are as follows:
1. Inbound Marketing:
- Engages the interest of the reader
- Engages the reader
- It appears on: Search engine results pages, blogs, eBooks, opt-in emails, social networks, and mobile apps.
- Needs of Customers Solved
- Helps them become leads as they consume helpful content
2. Outbound Marketing:
- Messages everyone at once
- TV ads, billboards, pop-ups, magazine ads, and telemarketing advertisements can all be seen
- One-sided communication
- designed to sell a product
- interrupts the flow of information
When using traditional outbound marketing tactics, people choose to skip that advertisement forced upon them. For example, to avoid advertisements, 60% of surveyed TV viewers plan to find and download shows2.
Television ads can be skipped because there are many online streaming options; your ads won’t be seen if your audience tunes out.
Similarly, listeners can easily avoid radio advertising with digital music services and satellite radio. The number of active Spotify users reached 271 million in December of last year.
In this way, radio no longer has the same impact as it used to. Additionally, direct mail is rarely read or scanned by 58% of its recipients. Mailing junk has low effectiveness, which is why it is referred to as “junk mail.”
In these areas, outbound marketing fails, and inbound marketing succeeds.
Inbound marketing examples B2B
Have a look at some of the inbound marketing examples.
Your company’s XYZ line of disposable tissues requires a new conveyor. As a facilities manager, you’ve decided it’s time to replace the existing one.
To understand your options, you need to research online before purchasing new equipment. You access the supplier’s website and open “5 Ways a Cylindrical Conveyor Increases Productivity and Output.” on the eBook. You click the article, and you find it to be very informative.
An offer of downloadable content related to conveyor output appears at the end of the blog post, so you provide your email in exchange.
The supplier now has you as a lead. Additionally, the supplier sends useful content offers to help you move further along the sales funnel. The expertise of this company makes you eager to engage with them as a facility manager.
What does it look like? Inbound marketing creates and presents content tailored to specific audiences relevant to more than one stage of the buyer’s journey, instead of traditional marketing, which spreads general messages to a wide audience (and often uninterested audiences).
The content is found on a supplier’s site as prospects do research related to their struggles, and they engage in a conversation with that supplier after viewing the content.
Inbound marketing strategy
Inbound marketing gives you a greater return on investment the more you invest. It’s more about commitment and brains than it is about budgeting. To produce effective content, you must dedicate your time and effort to it. Here are a few tips:
1. Develop buyer personas and business goals
Find out as much as you can about your target audience. Knowing your audience is crucial to writing content that informs your customers.
2. Make sure you develop your content at every stage
At each stage of the buying journey, anticipate your potential customers’ questions. Develop a compelling story that will capture their attention. What is it that will make them want to listen to you?
Transformative inbound marketing goes beyond traditional inbound marketing techniques by going far beyond the basics. Unlike conventional inbound marketing, the transformational style uses content to attract and retain customers throughout their entire lifecycle, including after they have become customers. Transformative inbound marketing also emphasizes relevance and personalization.
3. The third step is to choose your delivery platform
It’s important to determine the best source of content so you can reach your audience, whether it’s Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, your blog, or another medium. The more valuable the content you create for your audience, the more likely you are to win them as customers.
Types of inbound marketing
There are many forms of inbound marketing for businesses to use and adopt. Among them, the following are some of the most effective types:
1. Integrated content is the best
Content marketing will be dominated by interactive content in the future. Engaging audiences, driving traffic to your website, and increasing conversion rates are just a few of the areas where interactive content can provide tremendous value to your business.
2. Seminars
Inbound marketing strategies such as webinars help position your brand as a thought-leader and authority in your niche. Your viewers will be able to gain a deeper understanding of your topic by diving deeper into relevant topics. Additionally, the practice allows you to build relationships with prospects and clients.
3. Electronic newsletters
Your email list can be nurtured and cultivated through eNewsletters. Your newsletter subscribers will become accustomed to receiving it on the same day every month, increasing their responsiveness (strengthening open rates).
Conclusion
The future of marketing is inbound marketing, according to many experts. A major part of inbound marketing relies on the targeted provision of relevant content instead of outbound methods such as mass mailing and cold calling.
Using high-quality, useful content, a company can attract and convert users into leads and sales. Using search engine optimization to promote your company when potential customers search on Google and other platforms is crucial for inbound marketing.