Inbound marketing can be defined as making content or using social media tactics that are tailored in accordance to customers’ preferences. It’s a definite contrast against outbound marketing. While the latter one makes use of traditional methods which consists of outsourced telemarketing, trade shows and seminar series, the former one makes use of all forms of pull marketing like blogging, upgrading the website and implementing search engine optimization (SEO) in order to bring in more potential buyers of their products and overall create an awareness of their brand among the mass. Kind of like what a snake charmer does to a fanged reptile; you make the customer come to you rather than the other way around.
Inbound marketing is a new thing in digital marketing. And by the looks of it, it’s going to stay around for a while, unless some new substitute comes up. Which won’t be happening anytime soon.
Mechanism of Inbound marketing
There’s a procedure to Inbound marketing which can be broken down to three steps; attract, engage and delight.
1) Attract
The first and foremost thing to do is set up a website. And no, it shouldn’t be rudimentary that you only made the website as an afterthought and not treat it as a key marketing strategy when it should be handled in that way at the first place. This right here will be the beginning of everything; from being a first stop for many to building a lasting customer base with potential long term buyers.
The website layout should be simple, easy to understand and overall accessible. Bonus points if translation options are added as well, so that those who don’t understand the language know what they are getting into.
The website should contain everything; company mission and vision statement, complete portfolio of their products and nearby shops to look for, as well as online store along with links to direct contact via email and telephone lines.
With that being done, now comes opening accounts in suitable social media platforms. If looking from over the top view, all social media platforms will appear same, more or less. However, delving deep into it, you may find that there are indeed perceptible differences among the forums, so settling for just one social media channel is no longer an option.
Which then now brings us to another question; Which social media platforms to pursue for? That again depends on the type of the product you are dealing with and that which social media forums are mostly visited. If it is colorful and used by a majority, then facebook and Instagram would work best. But if it is a product that is technical and requires constant engagement with people, then making an account on twitter is a must.
Once you decide on where to open your account handles, the real work begins; networking with customers. Being active on social media platforms will automatically send a good message to people; that the company is responsive and present. Best way to operate in social media forums is to assign specific tasks on specific days.
Like video posting on Mondays only while info of deals and packages to be posted on Fridays. In this way, not only things will stay organized, but it will be easier for followers to keep track on the company they are following. In other words, it wouldn’t be overwhelming both for the business and the customers. Plus, the followers won’t be constantly bombarded with advertisements unlike in outbound marketing, where this thing is a constant menace.
Last but not the least; use of search engine optimization techniques (SEO) is essential and is an important element to why is goal setting important to inbound marketing. The goal is to ensure that the website is optimized for search. One way of doing so is through use of SEO words. It can’t be emphasized enough that just how important the use of SEO words is.
Use of them will make searching of the company easy. It will allow more people to look up at the website. Moreover, by using specific SEO words on the website, search engines like Google and Bing would aid it by posting the link of it on the very top of their pages.
Bringing in the right people with valuable content and initiating conversations that would establish the brand as a trusted advisor of sorts should be the main priority. And that can be achieved with the aforementioned digital marketing strategies.
2) Engage
Now that the introductory stage is completed, then comes the next part; use of engage tools. This comprises of looking into lead flows; customers who visited the website frequently and might become potential buyers in near future. This will then be followed up by making the said visitors to site sign up for newsletters from the company regarding marketing of the products. Either this or use of email marketing as well as conversational bots works too.
In addition to this, insights and solutions should be presented in such a way that it aligns perfectly well with customer queries regarding the product. By making the content easy to understand and comprehend, more and more people are likely to buy the product.
3) Delight
Last but not the least, the ‘delight’ stage. By now, most of the people would have purchased your product, if the above mentioned attract and engage strategies are carried out successfully. With the increase of buyers, it is now your responsibility to maintain a healthy relationship with them. Otherwise you might end up losing them to competitors.
This can be done by a follow up, again through an email. In addition to this, providing easy connection with company sales and service teams so that, should any problems arises with the use of the product, at least an instant help is there at the touch of button.
Why is goal setting important to inbound marketing
Now that we know how inbound marketing operates, we will be covering the goal setting aspects of it. Goal setting plays a vital part in our daily lives. If it weren’t for goal setting, most of our works, our plans won’t get finished and would be lying somewhere in the corner, unattended.
Inbound marketing will get nowhere if goal setting isn’t the part of it. There are number of reasons as to why is goal setting important to inbound marketing.
1) Developing Tactics
When goal setting, everyone involvement is a necessity; not only people from marketing department but from sales and service department, as well as from finance department too. Since inbound marketing main purpose is to draw in more people toward buying their product, the team must discuss tactics of how to achieve this. The marketing department will obviously suggest upgrading of the website and opening accounts in relevant social media forums. Upgrading of the website will definitely require investment, due to which coordination with finance department will be an obligation. The finance department will go through their budget. Once they give a green signal, the operation would start taking place.
From here onward, marketing department and sales and service department will need to stay in constant synchronization, otherwise things would go downhill. For example, the marketing department posts in the company website interface that ’24 hours’ service is available’. A customer calls, in hopes that their product’s impediment will be dealt with on spot. But when they call, nobody picks it up. This alone sends a wrong message that the business fails to keep up with its word. This will start a chain reaction. Before we know it, the company will suffer a dent, both in number of sales and in reputation. Such blunders simply can’t be afforded hence careful inbound marketing strategies should be adopted along with proper communication.
2) Monitoring success
Once the goals are decided and agreed upon and the duties are assigned to staff in their respective departments, the time to implement the plans comes up. Again, this too should be flexible. What if there isn’t one way, but several ways to achieve that particular goal? While it may be a good thing to stick to an original plan, but if there are hindrances present in that approach, then company should go looking for another approach. As long as the goal is fulfilled, changes in plan shouldn’t matter. Besides for every strategy, there should be a contingency plan. It creates a safety net of sorts.
The more specific and realistic the goals are, the more chances there will be of successful inbound marketing, which in turn will help in achieving business objectives overall.
3) Planning ahead
The company should evaluate their progress from time to time when it comes to achieving the established targets such as driving leads and closing sales etc. In this way, several things may come under observation that needs immediate attention like making an account on facebook isn’t speeding things up and isn’t reaching the target audience until the company acquires paid marketing of a said social media outlet. And if that doesn’t work too, the company should look for alternatives.
In order words, getting rid of those actions which clearly aren’t working and iterating those which are proving to be beneficial.
In addition to this, an updated plan should be sketched out too so as to keep up with the constant changes.
Altogether this will ensure that accountability to goals is being observed on a large scale.
Benefits of Inbound Marketing
There are several pointers that between the two, why inbound marketing will always have an upper hand over outbound marketing.
For one thing, the content presented by inbound marketing is engaging, educational and entertaining. It’s pleasing to an eye and easy to understand.
Inbound marketing doesn’t shove a product to your face unlike outbound marketing does. It gives an open invitation. Meaning it’s up to customers to decide whether they want to interact or not. In most of the cases, they do end up engaging.
Inbound marketing allows people to engage with the brand anytime, anywhere. This helps the company in generating genuine leads for much less money than in outbound marketing.
Strategies in inbound marketing has better return on investment (ROI).
Inbound marketing not only aids in promoting the company’s image but it provides precise measurements as to what is working and what is not and is essential to why is goal setting important to inbound marketing?
Skills required for Inbound Marketing
Aside from attaining a marketing degree, skills such as web development and design, data analysis and automation is required for inbound marketing. In addition to this, a general know-how of recent changes in SEO and current trends circulating around in social media outlets and read and read a lot of articles on why goal setting is important to inbound marketing.
Facts concerning Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing has less of an up-front cost than other marketing efforts. It’s known to generate three times more leads per year than traditional outbound marketing methods does. Plus, in a research conducted by groove digital marketing, it was found out that after making use of inbound marketing, 40 % of brands starting receiving ROI after six months while the rest of them, received it after a year.
