Inbound Marketing Fundamentals you should look out for in 2018 Inbound Marketing is a marketing methodology focused on attracting, educating and empowering consumers via relevant content that actually helps and guides them until they are ready to purchase your product or service. That road to purchase is the buyer’s journey, an active exploration or research process that a buyer goes through, prior to and leading up to the actual purchase. It’s made up of 3 stages: Awareness, Consideration and Decision. Traditional methods of “outbound” marketing tend to be loud, impersonal and annoying. Let us explore what inbound marketing means and you can get yourself found in search engines, the blogosphere, social media and convert more prospects to leads and customers using landing pages, lead intelligence and marketing analytics. Inbound Marketing Methodology Inbound marketing focuses on earning, not buying, a person’s attention, which is done through social media and engaging content, such as blogs, podcasts and whitepapers. This content is interesting, informative and adds value, creating a positive connection in the eyes of the consumer, thus making him more likely to engage your brand and buy the product. So it costs less and has better a ROI.
Strangers to Visitors: Attract Target users looking for better ways of solving a problem. In this phase of the funnel user is usually trying to find solution to a problem or trying to meet need to his challenge.
The first part of the inbound marketing methodolgy is to Attract. The world of the person (who uses a product or service) has changed. You can no longer have your brand interrupting people while they are in the middle of something completely unrelated to how youcan do business together. The inbound marketing methodology puts your brand in front of prospects when they are actually looking for what you have to offer. Some of the most important tools to attract the right users to your site are: 1. Search Engine optimization
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the method of affecting the web visibility of a website or a web page in an online search engine’s unpaid results— often referred to as “organic“, or “earned” results. 1. Inbound Content Inbound content is the content required by inbound marketing methodology for attracting customers through relevant and helpful content and adds value to the customer. 1. Blogging The purpose of writing blogs is to promote a product or service,create awareness about your brand & whatever is trending around it, information sharing about relevant topics. 1. Social Media Marketing Social media is one of the most budget-efficient marketing techniques used to syndicate content and boom your business’ visibility. Visitors to Leads: Convert
When you’ve attracted website site visitors, the following step is to transform those traffic into leads. You do this with the aid of starting up a communication in whatever way works great for them – with landing pages, call to actions, offers etc. when you’re in touch, you answer questions and offer relevant content material that is interesting and valuable to each of your personas – and keeps the communication. 1. Landing Page Lead generation landing pages are used to capture visitors data, together with a name and an email. Purpose to do so is to collect statistics with the intention to permit you to market to and associate with the likelihood at a resulting time. 1. Call to Action Call to actions are intended to incite a prompt reaction from visitors, more often than not utilizing a basic verb, for example, “call now”, “discover more” or “download ebook” etc.
1. Offers Due to different offers presented to different visitors, there is high possibility of vsitors getting converted and moving onto next stage of the funnel. Leads to Customers: Close
You’ve pulled in the right visitor for you and changed over to correct leads, however now you have to change those leads into clients. By what method would you be able to most adequately do this? The business tools accessible at this phase to ensure you’re closing the correct leads at the perfect time. 1. Automation Marketing automation alludes to the tools or software that exists with the objective of automating marketing activities. Many marketing agencies need to automate redundant errands, for example, messages, web-based social networking, and other website activities. Marketing automation makes execution of these tasks less demanding. 1. Lead Nurturing Any lead you get should be nurtured according to their interests and their funnel journey. The bloging sites they visited, landing pages, and other content they referred should be taken into consideration. Excellent nurturing process helps you win new customers faster. 1. Social Monitoring Social Monitoring helps you pay attention to what is being stated across the internet; monitoring media now not just from conventional publishers, but on thousands and thousands of social web sites too.
Customers to Brand Advocates: Delight
Furthermore, now your customer have substantially higher desires of your business. Along these lines, it’s significantly more imperative to draw in with, delight, and make your customer successful. In you do so, they will be with you for longer haul, refer their companions, and be cheerful to tell the world they cherish you. 1. Engage Manage, collaborate, and respond to customer messages, from any channel, inside HubSpot. Keep track of potential deals, questions, comments, and requests – and start having better more meaningful customer conversations. 1. Advocates This will emphasize getting existing customers to talk about the company and its products. Want to use Inbound Marketing to generate leads for your business? {{cta(‘5d058249-de0d-45b3-bde5-cec3e7b60d2e’)}} BUYER’S PERSONA Buyer’s Persona is a semi fictional representation of your ideal customer. Buyer’s persona enables you to comprehend your clients (and forthcoming clients) better. This makes it less demanding for you to tailor your content, messaging, products & services to the particular needs, practices, behaviors, and concerns of different groups. A point by point buyer persona will enable you to figure out where to center your opportunity, manage products & services, and take into consideration the next step over the association. Thus, you will have the capacity to pull in the most profitable visitors, leads, and clients to your business.
Get into the mindset of your ideal customers so that you can produce right content to attract more ideal customers and eventually convert them 1) Research The strongest buyer personas are based on market research as well as insights you gather from your actual customer base (through surveys, interviews, etc.). Organize this research and compile it all into a beautiful, presentable, palatable format 2) Indentify Trends (What,Why-interview) Look through the trends about how certain leads or customers find and consume your content. Your existing customer base is the perfect place to start with your interviews, because they’ve already purchased your product and engaged with your company. At least some of them are likely to exemplify your target persona Begin with a basic inquiry – one of our top choices is, “What is your greatest business challenge?” Learn more about that person by diving deep into that question. You take in more by asking “why?” than by making more shallow inquiries.
BUYER’S JOURNEY
The active research process a buyer goes through leading up to a purchase. The buyer journey is often described in terms of content needs or customer needs. While these are important, here isn’t a clear description of the buyer trip in terms of the goals and role of the marketer.
What buyers are looking for? Simple, additional information about your product that can’t be found online. As a marketer, you can customize your process to the buyer’s context by understanding the buyer’s journey. Buyer’s Phase
Buyer’s Say
Awareness – Need, Problem, Opportunity
“How do I know if I’m interested if I don’t even know you exist?”
Research Consideration – Explanation, Solutions, Provider
“Want to know more about you Going through content and collaterals, pricing”
Compare Decision – Inquiry, Sign up, Schedule “Give me ROI generic sign offs” Done
Awareness – Consideration – Decision Example:
Source The significance of mapping your customer journey on your marketing funnel has several benefits: 1. It allows you to determine wherein your resources have to be allotted. 2. You can measure behaviour and concerns of your buyer at each degree of consideration. 3. You can also fix any shortfalls occured with your buyer to improve for the next buyer’s journey
CAMPAIGN EXECUTION How long will you execute your campaigns based on the research and preparation done so far? How will you acquire maximum value before the campaign theme becomes blurry to you? How will you drive traffic and what should you be measuring?
These are all important questions to address before your campaign begins. So whether you’re warming up on your first campaign or just need to hit the go button, following steps will ensure to execute your next inbound marketing campaign successOffer : Here the idea is to create a piece/es of valuable content that you think will attract and drive conversions. Determine which type of Offer you want to give 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
A whitepaper with facts and benchmarks An intermediate-level guide An upcoming Event A free assessment/consultation Ebook or Checklist
Timeline & Goals
The timeline will differ for every section of the campaign, but think about how to spread out your mix of offers to (make as big as possible) it hit/effective without having them run so long that the overall theme is watered-down. Setting goals is easiest if you’ve already got previous results. Drive Traffic To support your campaign and drive traffic to your offers, form content & manage your other communication channels in such a way that it drives traffic towards your offer. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Blog Social Media Email Pay-Per-Click Ads
Nurture Leads Just because someone converts on one offer in your campaign doesn’t mean they’re ready to make a purchasing decision. Use a series of related emails to incrementally give your leads more and more information, and to nurture them through the sales funnel. Lead nurturing tools make it easier to automate and scale this practice, but if you’re a small enough business, it’s something you can do on your own. Report & Analyze: There are a few metrics that are truly central to the success your campaign. When your campaign period comes to a close, it’s a good idea to report on the following: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
New Customers Leads acquired Offer downloads CTA clicks Views
Ready to hit the “Go” button on your campaign? {{cta(‘f8d5599c-a9f2-404b-9470-999629220030’)}} BEST PRACTICES Inbound marketing is a powerful and effective methodology for B2B, B2C and nonprofits alike. The most recent State of Inbound study from Hubspot found respondents prioritizing inbound over outbound at a 3:1 ratio — no matter the audience. So, what are some inbound marketing best practices?
Use Buyer’s Persona Marketing success rests on the business’s knowledge of its audience. A customer relationship management tool, such as HubSpot, can help the brand better identify its target persona, track their activity and build campaign flows targeting each audience segment. Use Buyer’s Journey Identifying where a customer is in the buyer’s journey is another fundamental practice for the success of inbound marketing. Most prospects today don’t like to be prospected. They try to look for additional information about a problem or solution that can’t be found anywhere else. Create Remarkable Content Content+Context (tools,Quiz,Guides) Depending on the type of customer and the stage in their journey, you can offer content in various formats such as blogs, emails, research papers, videos, thought leadership articles, whitepapers and much more. One thing you should keep in mind is to refrain from blowing your own trumpet or hard sell your services as much as possible. Discover & Distribute Once you have created high-value content, it is essential to distribute it across various digital platforms so that it is visible to the maximum number of prospective customers. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Social Media Blogs Landing Pages Call to Actions Emails
Nurture your leads
By now, you may have already considered taking the inbound marketing approach to bring in more business leads, convert them into sales and grow your business. If you have not yet considered inbound marketing, you should read our blog to understand why this is the best marketing approach to grow your business. Inbound marketing is not a random process but is something that requires discipline and following the best practices so that you can see success. If you follow these practices, you can be sure that your organization will witness seamless sales and business growth.