Building a strong brand, pulling in new prospects, and retaining clients requires a strategically integrated marketing strategy. This often uses a combination of both outbound and inbound marketing. 

For certain organizations, such as start-ups, local businesses, and even bigger B2B corporations with limited resources for promotion, outbound marketing can be expensive and dicey. However, inbound marketing can be more manageable and focuses on creating demand by convincing people to come to you.

Are you looking for ways to grow your business using Inbound Marketing? If yes, you have come to the right place. From what is inbound marketing to the need for inbound marketing, and from the stages of inbound marketing to inbound marketing techniques, we will cover it all.

So, let's get started!

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is the process of converting visitors into clients and sponsors of your business. Since the digital age, the inbound marketing strategy is turning into an undeniably practical and useful instrument for accomplishing business development and building a strong online presence. 

This is chiefly due to the shift in how individuals are using the internet as their key source to get the data they need.

inbound 1

Source: keystonemarketing

Inbound marketing is a business strategy that draws in clients by creating valuable content and custom-made experience. While outbound marketing intrudes on your crowd with content they don't generally require, inbound marketing forms networks they search for and tackles issues they already have.

Why Inbound Marketing

  • Inbound marketing levels up your digital marketing strategy of lead generation and client engagement by delivering your prospects with the content they require to make a decision.
  • The old outbound marketing strategies focused on buying ads, buying email lists, and expecting leads. However, inbound marketing centers around providing quality to your audience.
  • By regulating the content you publish keeping your audiences' interests in mind, you will undoubtedly pull in the inbound traffic that you would be able to convert, close, and engage. 
  • Inbound marketing draws in prospects to your business through content marketing, SEO, and social media and keeps them coming back for more engaging and insightful content.
  • The most remarkable aspect about inbound marketing is that it's anything but a paid advertising. This means your content can stay on your site as long as you need it to without costing you a dime 
  • When you stop paying for advertisements with Google Adwords, Facebook promotions, etc., your leads and site traffic will stop instantly. This isn't the case with inbound marketing.

Stages of Inbound Marketing

Are you wondering how to do Inbound Marketing or how to create an inbound marketing strategy? Well, inbound marketing strategies vary according to the stages of your client. Let’s take a loot at those stages first.

Attract

Attracting prospects is the initial phase in the inbound marketing approach. At this primary marketing stage, the potential client is looking for content to resolve an issue. Keeping this in mind, create and deliver content to your prospects as and when required. 

This can be achieved through SEO optimization, contributing to a blog, and social media marketing.

Convert

When you draw in the right visitors to your site, the objective is to convert them into leads by acquiring their contact information on the landing page. To get this valued data from the prospect, you need to offer them something equally valuable in return.

This is the point at which you ought to provide them high-quality content that will help in their decision-making journey. In return, the prospect will provide their contact details so that you can market to them efficiently later on.

Close

This is the stage where leads are converted into clients. At this stage, explicit marketing tools, such as email marketing, lead nurturing, and social media analysis, are used. 

The main objective is to ensure that the right leads are passed to the sales department at the right time. The sales department then connects with the prospect to seal the deal. 

Delight

Inbound marketing revolves around delivering exceptional content to both your leads and your clients. This implies that even after a lead turns into a client, they still should be engaged through compelling content and social media. 

The objective of delighting clients is both addressing their issues and transforming them into promoters of your business. You generally need to consider the client since they can either be the chief advocates for your brand or the top critics.

Now that you know about the Inbound Marketing stages, let's move on to the Inbound marketing methodology.

Inbound Marketing Methodology

Inbound Marketing Methodology includes the marketer in each phase of a buyer’s journey to finding the ideal product or service. This process involves pulling in the right traffic to your site, converting them into leads, sealing more deals, and pleasing your clients.

inbound methodology 1

Source: clickx.io

The more resources you put into your inbound marketing methodology, the more effective your outcomes will be. Always keep in mind that the best inbound marketing results are accomplished through digital channels and strategies. 

You can use these channels to:

  • Create and deliver explicit and rewarding content,
  • Do marketing for your leads and clients based on which stage of buyer’s journey they are at present.

SEO

Do you feel SEO is a difficult-to-control and time-consuming strategy? Well, SEO is the way toward optimizing your site's content and structure to get organic searches on the search engines. 

Having a quality site and SEO friendly content guarantees that Google's web-crawler will recognize and index your webpage's content to have it appear for free to those looking for it. 

Search engine optimization is a fundamental part of your inbound marketing strategy. Because if no one can find you on the web, how will you get business or let people know who you are or what you do?

So, your website and the content you deliver must be SEO friendly so that the search engines can validate it. Because ultimately, it's all about the search engines. If they don't like you, they won't promote you either. So, to be in the game, you have to play by their rules.

Tip: Do not start working towards SEO blindly. 

Do you have to impress the search engines? Yes. 

Are search engines your target audience? No.

So, write content that people can understand and connect to what you are trying to convey. Do not get lost in SEO's deep ocean only where the only fishes for you to catch are the search engines. Try to keep a balance. 

Your mantra should be to write SEO-friendly content acceptable by the search engines and get you the attention of your target audience. 

Content Marketing

Marketers often consider content the sole segment of inbound marketing strategy, and keeping in mind that it's indeed not the only angle, it is a crucial one. You cannot possibly keep or convert your leads if you don't have fresh and valuable content to offer. 

Your content should come in many forms to help your crowd get answers to their questions or tackle an issue. The key to content marketing is content that stands out. 

Anyone can answer a query or has one thing or the other to say; you have to be so good that the audience chooses to listen to you over others.

Social Media Marketing

If you believe your work is done once you have published highly engaging content on your website, let me burst that bubble for you. No, your job is not done! In fact, this is where you need to be more active. Keep that break on hold for now.

Because now you need to share and promote your content on social media platforms. Why? Do you check a website frequently? Not yours, of course, and no, your competitors' don't count either. 

The point being, unless and until someone is a die-hard fan, no one visits a page frequently. So, if no one is visiting your site, who would read all the engaging content we just told you about? That's where social media marketing comes. 

Creating engaging content is just a little piece of the riddle. Ensuring that your content reaches the target audience is where social media sweeps in. It's an incredible way to “promote” your organic traffic if your page doesn't have great rankings yet.

via GIPHY

Landing Pages

A landing page is another significant component of your inbound marketing strategy. This is where the leads land once they click on your call-to-action. Regardless of whether it is a product page, a form to fill out, or a membership page, you need to make sure your landing page is remarkable.

Remarketing

When a lead has visited your site, expressed interest in your content, products, or services, you need a strategy to keep them locked in. 

Perhaps one of the best strategies is Remarketing. This strategy uses cookies to track your website guests and follows them around the web with advertisements reminding them to return.

Remarketing can be set in various ways. For example, you can remarket to any individual who visited your site, show explicit advertisements to visitors who went to a specific page or even promote someone who has put things in a shopping basket. However, they haven't checked out yet.

Wrapping Up

The inbound marketing methodology is the strategy of growing your organization by building meaningful, long-term relationships with prospects and clients. It's about cherishing and empowering these people to meet their objectives at any stage in their journey with you. 

There are multiple ways you can go forward with your inbound marketing. You can write blogs, publish e-books and case studies, find the best keywords, and improve your social media marketing strategy.

What you need to understand is that Inbound marketing is intricate and keeps changing. Therefore, your marketing strategy needs to be updated as per the customer's behavioral shifts and the market trends.

And if your inbound marketing techniques aren't working, don't worry. Talk to experts, and they will help you strategize well for better inbound marketing results.

If you have more queries or want expert hands for implementing Inbound Marketing methodology in your business don't hesitate to contact us.

Frequently Asked Questions

Inbound marketing is a way to make your organization grow by forming strong, long-lasting connections with consumers, prospects, and customers. Instead of interrupting people with ads and messages they may not want, inbound marketing focuses on creating valuable content and experiences that naturally attract people to your brand. It involves four stages: Attract, where you create helpful content to draw people in; Engage, where you interact and build trust with them; Delight, where you provide exceptional experiences; and, finally, the customers become promoters who recommend your brand to others, completing the cycle of inbound methodology.

In inbound marketing, there are five key principles known as S.C.O.P.E. First is “Standardize,” which means maintaining a consistent message for various users. Next is “Contextualize,” tailoring your content to suit the audience and situation. Then comes “Optimize,” where you make sure your content is easily discoverable by search engines. “Personalize” involves catering to individual preferences, and finally, “Empathize” means understanding and addressing the needs of your audience. These principles guide effective inbound marketing strategies, helping businesses attract, engage, and build relationships with customers in a more personalized and meaningful way.

Inbound marketing has three important advantages. First, it's cost-effective, meaning it saves money compared to traditional advertising. Second, it tends to have higher conversion rates, turning more visitors into customers. Third, it focuses on delivering a great experience for customers, which builds trust and loyalty. Additionally, it boosts brand recognition, making your business more well-known.

Inbound marketing works because it happens right on your own website. This means the things you create and make better can keep bringing in good outcomes for a long time. When you write helpful blogs, make informative videos, or offer valuable resources, they stay on your site and can be found by people even months or years later. It's like setting up a shop in a busy street – even when you're not there, people can still find and benefit from what you've shared. This makes inbound marketing a powerful and sustainable way to reach and help your audience.

Richa Sharma brings her passion for clear communication to the world of marketing content. Though an engineer by training and a Ph.D. dropout at heart, Richa excels in crafting engaging and informative written pieces. With over 7 years of experience, she leverages her technical background to create easy-to-understand content on diverse topics, including technology trends, digital marketing strategies, and consumer insights.