Inbound Marketing Insights

Are you familiar with the inbound marketing methodology?  Our inbound marketing blog series focuses on the four steps of the inbound marketing methodology: Attract, Convert, Close & Delight.  

The first part of the inbound marketing methodology is to Attract.  The world of the consumer has changed. Companies can no longer have their brand interrupting individuals while they are in the middle of something completely unrelated to see how you can potentially do business together.  Outbound marketing, such as television commercials, magazine ads, radio spots, direct mail, and more, is not only interrupting the audience to try to get their attention, but often, you might not even be speaking to the right audience because your reach is likely too broad. The inbound marketing methodology puts your brand in front of prospects when they look for what you have to offer.

Inbound Marketing Methodology Step 1:  Attract

You don’t want any traffic to your site...you want the right traffic. Who are the “right” people? The right people visiting your site are your ideal customers, also known as buyer personas. These are the people you need to be creating content for because they will be potential customers. If you're not familiar, buyer personas are holistic ideals of what your customers are really like, inside and out. Personas encompass the goals, challenges, pain points, common objections, and personal and demographic information shared among that particular prospect or customer type. Writing content around these areas draws your target market in, and familiarizes them with your brand through content development, search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization, and social media.

Some of the essential facets of the inbound methodology to attract the right users to your site are:

• Content Development (Blogging & Premium Content Offers): Content has moved far past just a way to get ahead of your competition. Blogging and premium content offers are now necessary for your digital and inbound marketing strategy. Two main benefits of content marketing are increased traffic to your website and increased lead conversion, part of the "Convert" section of the inbound marketing methodology.
• Search Engine Optimization: Before you start with content marketing or any part of your inbound marketing plan, you need to target the appropriate keywords on your website. There's a balance between trying to target keywords you want to rank for, though, versus what people are searching for when researching producing and services. This is where having a tool that helps you aggregate that data comes into place.  For example, you may want to rank number one for the term "Leadership," but that is incredibly competitive. If you are a Leadership Trainer or Leadership Consultant, you want to rank for terms like "Leadership Training" or "Leadership Consultant" as those will have a more targeted search by your prospects. When optimizing your website and content, focus on keywords built around your products/services, what challenges you are solving for the visitor, how your products can help them, frequently asked questions, etc. This will help you rank organically and provide content to your audience that draws them into your digital channels.
• Social Media Marketing: Social media is not just for B2C companies. In fact, on average, B2B marketers who use Twitter generate twice as many leads as those who do not.  Social media is a fantastic way to engage with your customers and attract new followers to your brand.  Utilizing social media as a traffic driver and lead generation tool is about posting content and monitoring your social media channels to see who is talking about your brand and your industry in general.  This gives you the insights you need to connect with those individuals in a medium they are most comfortable on - social media! Remember to pick the right channels based on your personas and where they are searching for information. 
  
  

As you can see, many different aspects go into attracting qualified traffic to your website.  It is no longer about spending your marketing budget on outbound initiatives or even nearly as much on paid digital advertising.  You can utilize inbound marketing tools to drive qualified traffic to your site, convert those visitors into leads, and close those leads into customers and promoters of your brand.

If you're looking for ways to integrate more inbound efforts into your overall digital marketing strategy, we invite you to schedule a consultation with our inbound marketing experts.