How Inbound Marketing Can Grow Your Business

Why Use Inbound Marketing?

Let’s be real: no one likes looking at advertisements. No matter how cute, clever, or creative your ad, most internet users don’t want to see them. Ad Blockers have become the easiest remedy for this, and traditional methods of digitally promoting your business are no longer effective because of this. Over 615 million devices now use Ad Blockers, according to a recent report from Pagefair.

For the user? Yeah, that’s pretty beneficial: it negates the cringe-worthy “pop-up ad” and assures no interruption in their internet search. But for advertisers that focus on outbound marketing strategies, or display ads… this can be pretty detrimental to your campaign.

With Inbound Marketing, there are no “blockers”. Rather than loudly bellowing your brand’s name into the digital ether, you’re reaching out to potential leads with relevant search content. Imagine this as someone screaming at your to buy their product, as opposed to helping educate you on your purchase. It seems pretty obvious which is the more preferred option, right?

The “cold call” on the internet is dead. Inbound Marketing is the smartest solution to your digital marketing needs because:

• It’s cost effective. What’s not to love about that? Inbound Marketing efforts cost approximately 62% less than leads from outbound marketing.
• You’re blending in. Most people use the internet to find information. When you provide them with information, you’re camouflaged and coax your potential lead into learning more about what you can provide them.
• It’s easily accessible. The internet is everywhere. Anyone can access the web from the convenience of their smart phone… which means, you have a wide sea of potential leads to throw your net. Of course, you’ll need to be certain you have your Inbound Marketing goals in mind before blindly beginning your campaign… but the benefits of easily accessible information is apparent. Anyone can find your business, at any time.
• It’s less frustrating for consumers. The idea of Inbound marketing is to attract–not interrupt. By providing relevant content, you’re communicating with your customers in a way they’ve given you permission to. The customer is in control of the conversation… which makes the process of finding a product or service much easier on them. With Inbound, you’re meeting them where they are and furthering their interest in your product–without forcing them.
• It provides consistent results over time. Your success is measurable, trackable, and consistent over the course of your campaign.

Outbound vs. Inbound

Let’s take a moment to imagine the difference in interaction with an example.

You’re walking through a mall with a friend looking for a brand new bag. Suddenly a kiosk salesman approaches you. You have no knowledge of their product, who they are, or what they’re selling – yet they insist on having you come to their kiosk to view the product. More often than not, you would wave them aside and offer a sheepish “No, thank you”.

The kiosk may have a product that perfectly suits your needs as a customer… but their strategy of loudly approaching a stranger entirely turns you away.

Seth Goddin refers to this strategy as “Interruption” marketing. Interruption marketing is a method of advertising intended to force a viewer to view their product. In essence, their strategy is to interrupt you to make a sales pitch. Best examples of this would be a Telemarketing call to your business phone number, that takes time out of your work day to attend to.

We refer to Interruption marketing now as “Outbound” – an old marketing strategy slowly phasing out of modern advertisement. This method can be seen as meddlesome and annoying, and turn a potential buyer away from a product that might be a good fit for them. In addition, technology has developed to filter these “spam” emails, calls, or advertisements out. Outbound is no longer an effective marketing strategy due to this.

The Value of Content

Inbound Marketing places focus on providing valuable content to your customers.

You’re not trying to beg for a sale – rather, you’re providing solutions to potential problems and creating a conversation with the customer. Relevant content to your audience will further draw them to your company, while simultaneously creating a relationship with your customers. Imagine that you are a small boutique trying to target young women in the area. Your best method of gaining traffic might be a series of blog posts or videos about how to match clothing colors, or which brands (that your company carries) are best for specific occasions.

Create content your customer will want to click on and read more about. In a digital age with increased ability for choice, you want your customers and leads to willingly make the choice to engage with your business. The same way that people are less likely to respond to someone randomly approaching them at the mall with a flyer, people are even less likely to view a website that aggressively pushes for their visit.

The goal of Inbound is to attract – not interrupt. Providing meaningful content is the easiest method of creating that attraction to your business. Engage your target audience with relevant and useful information, while providing them a way your product or service can address their specific needs.

Inbound Method: From Stranger to Advocate

Now, we have a clear idea of our goal.

To recap, we are looking to create an advocate for our service or product, as opposed to an in-and-out customer. Inbound Marketing’s goal aligns with this perfectly, by taking this conversion and breaking it into five steps:

• Attract – This is our landing page. We want to attract strangers and create visitors out of them. The easiest way to attract a customer is by providing relevant content. If you’re looking for a Dog Walker in West Park, but the page you click on doesn’t contain any relevant information about their services… you’re unlikely to continue viewing their website.
• Convert – Now, our Visitor is on the website, reading our content. We want them to become a lead, or potential customer. In this step, we’re coaxing our new visitor to ask questions. We want them to speak with us, and interact with the business. In doing so, we create an opportunity to provide more relevant content for their convenience. This can be as easy as providing a form to fill out, scheduling meetings with the customer, or providing a chat-room for open dialogue.

• Close – As the name suggests, we want to close the deal. Now our visitor has become a lead, and has potential to become a customer. Our goal now is to create a customer. We can achieve this by nurturing our lead: sending more relevant content encouraging their business with us. This can be as simple as a call-to-action form, email newsletter, and so on.
• Delight – Now you have a customer! Congratulations! The next and final step is to create a customer willing to promote your product to others. Regularly providing content they might enjoy is the best way of achieving this. As the step name suggests, you want to entertain your regular customers: maybe through blog posts, or video updates.

These five steps are key in ensuring a steady influx of traffic in your business, with each step as important as the next. Remember: it is more advantageous to create a returning, loyal customer than to conduct a single transaction. After all, anyone can sell a product once: but creating a customer willing to come back to you over and over again can be the difference between a thriving, steady business and sporadic bursts in sales.

Content Creation Tips

Let’s use “dog walker in West Park” as our example. Let’s say your business happens to cater to that area as well as provide that service. You’ve created a beautiful WordPress website detailing your services, prices, and service area. You provide detailed information about your experience, your services, and your love for animals… but you have no website traffic. So, what’s going on?

First and foremost, take a step back. Look at your content through the eyes of your customer: Is it helpful? Is it relevant? Is it interesting?

Here’s a few steps toward a better Inbound Marketing strategy:

• Demographic. Who are you trying to appeal to? When you imagine a customer for your business, who do you imagine? Determining who your ideal customer will be is the first step in creating relevant content for them to partake in. Then, tailor your content for your demographic. Writing vague, unspecific content for a website intended for a specific area makes it sound ingenuine, or fishy.

• Value. Remember the old saying: “quality over quantity”. While having a variety of content is valuable for any website, it is overall more important to have quality content for your audience to view. To determine whether or not your content is valuable, ask yourself this: Can my audience use the information I’m presenting? Is it relevant to them, and how can I relate it back to my product or service?
• Include Keywords. Depending on your product or service, you want to optimize your content for search engines. For example, if you’re selling “women’s winter coats”, those are the three words you should definitely include in your page: in the content title, body text, landing page URL, page header, and so on.
• CTA. CTA refers to a call-to-action. This can be a button with text like “Learn more!” or “Complete our Survey”. The idea of including a CTA in your page is to generate customer engagement. You want your audience to feel included and engaged in your content.

Is Inbound Right for My Business?

Making the switch to Inbound is a cost-effective, long-term commitment. It’s natural to feel weary of changing strategies, and have uncertainty in how effective it can be. Before making the switch, it’s important to ask yourself a few questions:

• Will my customers use the web to research my industry or business? More often than not, the answer to this is a neon, flashing YES! It’s rare that a customer will not conduct some form or research when buying a product or service: and having an online presence to provide the information they need could greatly help your chances of landing a customer.

• Are your customers uncertain of the services you provide? When operating on traditional marketing means, it can be easy for a customer to be unsure of what bases your company covers. Perhaps your pamphlets aren’t updated, and a third party printing company is too expensive for your business at the time. Having an online presence is not only cost-effective, but provides your customers all the information on your product or service they could ever need–from the comfort of their home!

• Are your customers engaged and connected with your business? How often are your regular customers engaging with you? Do they quietly return to the business when they need your service, then fade back into the ether? Do you feel as though your customers are aware of any new services of products you’re offering? Your business’s website, when optimized with Inbound, can offer a connection between your customer and you that may not always be available traditionally.

• Where are you on Google, Bing, or other search providers? Does your business pop up where you’d like it to? Do you have to click on the dreaded second page of Google to even find mention of your name? Is your competitor above you on Google? Inbound Marketing can better boost your traffic by lifting your website’s search engine spot.

• Have your traditional methods been producing less than astounding results? Let’s be honest: often, when we receive a pamphlet in the mail, email blast, or phone call about a new business… we do all we can to ignore it. Maybe our pamphlet gets a once-over glance, but traditional methods are rapidly decreasing in efficacy. It might be more cost effective for your small business to skip the costly print ads, and move into Digital Marketing.

• Is your target audience online? If you’re targeting, for example, young women between the ages of 18 and 25… your best bet reaching them is through their smartphone. But if you’re looking at an older demographic of, say, men in their late 60’s, it might be more beneficial to find ways of traditionally reaching them. Remember: your ideal customer is who you want to be marketing for. Inbound may or may not be the right fit depending on how frequently they are online.

• Are your customers asking questions? Are you regularly getting calls or emails with questions about your business? Does your pamphlet or newspaper advertisement no longer properly describe the services you provide? Inbound content can provide the information that they need – at a fraction of printing costs.

Where do I Start?

So, let’s recap: we know what inbound marketing is, we know how to create content, how to determine if it’s good for our business, how it works, and a little bit of history about it. The nagging question now is where in all that we’re supposed to start.

Let’s break this into small steps:

Educate yourself on Inbound. This article barely scratches the surface of all that Inbound Marketing can offer your business. Plenty of case studies have been conducted to vouch for its efficacy! I highly recommend taking the time to read more on Inbound Marketing. Consider the full scope of your options

Ask yourself a few questions before engaging:

• Who is my customer? Do you know who your target demographic is? This will affect how you structure your website and content.
• What content will appeal to them? Let’s use our “dog walker” example again. What kind of content can a pet care facility post on their website to help and delight their future and current customers? This can be content such as blogs, videos, eBooks, or Webinars. Content for your customers should be relevant, quality, and helpful.
• Develop a marketing strategy. The most obvious step in all of this is determining how to go about your campaign. Will you accompany your content with PPC advertisements? Display Ads? What keywords will you be using? This step is vital in structuring and optimizing your campaign.
• Create and maintain your website. Be sure to structure your website in an intuitive and user-friendly way. Include Call-to-Actions to coax potential customers into interacting with your website. Even the layout of your website can play a part in the way a customer views your business.
• Create high quality content for your website. Again, this can be in any of the formats listed in bold above. Quality of content can be considered high when it is most relevant to your client base. Not only should your content benefit potential customers, but recurring customers. Remember: our goal is to keep customers coming back to us, as well as attracting new ones. Aim to please your existing clients while also proving your business to be helpful to new ones.
• Set benchmarks and track success metrics. Blind optimization is exactly that: a shot in the dark. The best means of reassuring your campaign’s success is to set measurable goals for yourself over time. Having something to work towards can make the transition of your marketing strategy into Inbound optimization

How Inbound Can Fail & How to Avoid It

Every strategy has its own room for failure, and Inbound Marketing is no exception to that. Success in Inbound Marketing entirely relies on the content. Understanding where others have made errors can easily help you better optimize your Inbound Marketing strategy.

Look out for these easy errors to keep your campaign afloat:

“General” Content

Remember: you’re trying to target your ideal demographic. You want to create content that your ideal audience will enjoy. For example, if you’re a dog caretaker, do you really think your audience will appreciate an article about cats? Stay relevant, and stay focused.

For this example, we’re looking at an article that is meant to function as an overview of Digital Marketing. The field itself is wide and full of various methods… and covering them in one article isn’t the wisest idea. Trying to provide watered down information for the sake of putting something out will hurt your business more than help it. It would have been wiser for the author to create separate articles for each facet of Digital Marketing, and maybe use this as an “introduction” article. 

Remember: keep your target audience in mind. Provide the relevant, specific information.

Bad Content

Again, you’re making content your business’s ideal audience will enjoy. If you wouldn’t read your own article, why would anyone else want to?

Nothing is worse than stumbling across an article like this. It has nothing to offer us, other than the musings of a Google fanatic. This is not an article that is interesting or helpful… it’s outright bad. The author should have kept their target audience in mind, rather than spitting out random content without intent.

Blogging for Keywords

Nothing is more painful than an article that blatantly overuses its keywords. When every sentence features “SEO” and “keyword”, it becomes fairly apparent you’re not actually providing useful content.

Did you cringe? I did. Nothing is worse than reading an article with their keyword as the other word. It becomes rapidly apparent to a customer that you have nothing meaningful to put forward, when all you do is repeat the same words seven times over in one sentence. The content you’re providing, while adding SEO benefits to your website, isn’t just for you to sprinkle in keywords: you’re appealing to your customers.

For your customer’s sake and yours, don’t overuse your keywords. If you have nothing meaningful to say, it’s best not to make a post at all.

Why the Mack Media Group?

Content creation can be time-consuming… and even with your newfound knowledge of Inbound Marketing, you may feel uncertain of where to begin, or if you’ll safely be able to maintain your content output. Having a consistent flow of new content on your website is key in remaining relevant, but–as a business owner–time is of the essence.This is where having a team to manage your website and content can be useful!

Our professional team at Mack Media Group will work with you to assure a steadier flow of online traffic. With a myriad of content creators, we’re able to respond to the needs of your clientele however you see fit: blog posts, social media posts, videos, and much more.

By pairing your Inbound content with Search Engine Optimization, intuitive Web Design, Pay-per-Click advertising campaigns, and Social Media marketing campaigns, we give your business the tools it needs to get the traffic it needs.

Give us a call today at (203)-408-6591.