When you find your groove, there is nothing that can slow down the momentum of a successful inbound marketing campaign.
Inbound marketing has become increasingly popular in the marketing and advertising world. In contrast to outbound marketing (e.g. cold calling, email blasts and ads) where companies directly advertise their products to the public, inbound marketing involves creating engaging, informative content (e.g. blog posts, ebooks, infographics) to draw people to your website or business.
Generally, inbound marketing strategies are less expensive and will generate a higher rate of return in the long term. They can generate 3X more leads than outbound marketing techniques. If you are looking to dive into inbound marketing but are not sure where to begin, these six strategies are a great place to start.
1. Blogging or content marketing
Blogging and content marketing are effective strategies to engage your target market and generate leads with high conversions. More than 90% of businesses adopt content marketing to gain leads, and many bloggers see strong marketing results from their blogs.
There are two important factors if you go for blogging or content marketing—relevancy and frequency. Be it text, videos or graphics, the content you create should be relevant to your business and appeal to your audience. In addition, you need to publish new content regularly and frequently so that your potential customers can find you and know you are still in business.
By starting a blog or creating content relevant to your target audience, you’re opening up a dialogue with potential customers. You’re giving them valuable information that they can use and building a relationship with them, which in turn encourages them to become prospective customers.
2. Optimize your website to get more organic search results
Since inbound marketing is all about attracting qualified leads and converting them into customers, that makes search engine optimization (SEO) an important part of the equation. Optimizing your website, blog or social media pages for search engines ensures that your site will rank higher in search results. Hence, your potential customers who are looking for the products or services you offer can discover your company much more easily.
So, it’s a cold, hard fact that your company will face a digital uphill battle if it doesn’t have enough exposure on Google (or any search engine). To make your website search-engine-friendly, make sure to use the right keywords, properly tag your images, create descriptive titles and meta descriptions and more. It may appear to be a lot of work, but it will help you attract more organic traffic.
3. Make a great effort in designing landing pages
A landing page is a key ingredient of inbound marketing, yet many marketers and startups still don’t know how to use them effectively. It is where a visitor “lands” after clicking on a link in an email newsletter, an advertisement, Google search results etc. It is a significant component in any marketing or advertising campaign to encourage visitors to perform specific actions, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or downloading a white paper.
One important element of an effective landing page is the CTA button. It tells your audience what action to take, such as “Download our e-book” or “Sign up for our webinar”. The point is to get your visitors to click, and voilà! They are one step closer to becoming your potential customers. You can infuse creativity and originality while picking colors, font, text graphics etc. for your CTA buttons to convince the visitors of your site that they will miss out a lot for not clicking now.
An outstanding landing page should also include testimonials, social proof and compelling offers that help build trust and credibility. These offers should be highly relevant to your target audience and provide real value. For example, if you’re a startup that provides accounting software for small businesses, you could create a free ebook on “The Top 10 Tax Deductions for Small Businesses” for visitors to download.
4. Nurture your leads with email marketing
Once you’ve attracted visitors and converted them into leads, it’s time to start nurturing those leads with email marketing. This involves sending targeted emails at different stages of the buyer’s journey in order to build relationships and eventually turn leads into paying customers. You can use email automation tools (like HubSpot) to make this process easier and more efficient.
If we look at the projected numbers, the global email user base is expected to reach 4.3 billion by the end of 2022. This figure is predicted to increase to 4.6 billion by 2025. This clearly demonstrates that email marketing is an opportunity that marketers should not pass up.
5. Use social media to reach potential customers
In the digital age, one of the most efficient ways to reach out to your customers is through social media platforms, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat and Quora, to name a few. But simply having a social media presence is not enough!
To truly maximize the power of social media, businesses need to create engaging content and participate in online conversations. Asking and answering questions on platforms, like Quora or Reddit, or creating community groups related to your niche are some great ways to get potential customers interested in your products or services.
Posting high-quality content on a regular basis is also important. This content should be interesting, informative and relevant to your target audience. Using images, text and videos to keep things fresh will help you to create a successful social media presence.
If you’re looking to ease your social media use and get a better handle on your inbound marketing, you can consider adopting social media management platforms. With these platforms, you can get the most out of social media platforms by scheduling posts, managing followers and visualizing analytics. The best part is, many of them are free! There are a number of social media management platforms to choose from, each with its own unique features. Hootsuite, for example, provides users with powerful scheduling and analytics tools; Buffer is known for its ease of use; and Sprout Social is another option that offers a suite of features specifically designed for businesses and professionals.
As social media continues to evolve, businesses that embrace this change will be well-positioned to reap the benefits of this powerful marketing tool.
6. Measure and analyze your results
Last but not least, it’s important to measure and analyze your results so that you can continually optimize your inbound marketing efforts. There are a number of different metrics you can track, like website traffic, number of new leads, lead conversion rate, etc. Ultimately, the goal is to attract more qualified leads that convert into paying customers—so track whatever metric will help you best measure that goal!
These are just a few of the many inbound marketing strategies you can try out to find out what works for you. With a little bit of effort, you can attract more potential customers and convert them into lifelong fans of your company—all without breaking the bank. What are you waiting for? Get started today!
Also read:
- Affordable Marketing Strategies for Upcoming Startups
- Top Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2021
- How to Use Blogs To Generate Leads?
- Two SEO Tactics That Can Make Your Website Visible And Help Your Business Grow
- 9 Essential SEO Tools to Boost Your Brand Reputation
Header image courtesy of Freepik
