An introduction to INBOUND MARKETING · According to HubSpot, conversions from properly executed...

An introduction to

INBOUNDMARKETING

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An Introduction to Inbound Marketing

Consumer behavior has changed drastically over the past decade, in large part due to the Internet. People have become adept at tuning out traditional marketing messages. Research shows that 86 percent of people skip television ads, and the use of online ad-blocking software surged 30 percent in 2016.

Today’s consumers prefer to do their own research online and expect to be able to engage in two-way communication with companies and brands. They expect to be able to find the information they want, when they want it — and they don’t want to be interrupted with intrusive advertising.

As a result, marketing has evolved to integrate with this shift in consumer behavior. A new approach to marketing has become the standard in today’s digital world: inbound marketing.

SURPRISE!SURPRISE!


What is inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is the practice of attracting, or pulling, prospective customers towards you rather than pushing a marketing message out to them.

Inbound marketing …

• Makes your brand easy to find for people who are searching for a service or a solution to a problem.

• Focuses on the needs of the consumer, not on messaging that is in the best interest of the company.

• Relies heavily on the creation of content that is valuable in some way to consumers — content that presents a solution, teaches them something new, or helps them make a decision.

• Is non-interruptive. It allows consumers to interact with you according to their needs and their schedule.

• Allows you to establish yourself as a thought leader and a valuable resource so that when your audience is ready to make a purchase decision, they think of you.

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What can inbound marketing do for you?

Inbound marketing allows you to:

• execute highly targeted campaigns

• generate more qualified leads

• lower your marketing costs

• benefit from quantifiable results

According to HubSpot’s State of Inbound 2017 report, companies are nearly four times as likely to see higher ROI on inbound marketing campaigns than on outbound marketing tactics such as TV, radio, and print ads. Over a two-year period, companies focusing on inbound methodology saw a continuous increase in website visitors, a steady increase in the number of leads generated, a higher conversion rate of leads to customers, and an increase in sales revenue.


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Decrease your marketing costsInbound marketing methods result in a lower cost per lead than traditional marketing channels. A survey of 972 marketing professionals found that organizations focusing on inbound marketing techniques such as search engine optimization, blogging, and social media experienced a 61 percent lower cost per lead than outbound marketing-dominated organizations. The average cost per lead for inbound marketing-dominated businesses was just $135 compared to a cost per lead of $346 using outbound marketing techniques.

Get found easier and more often by website visitorsEighty-one percent of global Internet users research products online before making large purchases, and Google processes 100 billion searches every month. Publishing consistent, valuable content on your website is essential to achieving higher search engine rankings and exposing your company to more potential customers. Companies that post new blogs 11 or more

times each month generate four times as many leads as companies that

blog only 4-5 times per month, and companies with websites of between 401-1000 pages get six times more leads than sites with 51-100 pages.


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Increase your brand’s trust and credibilityWhen people trust a brand, 83% will recommend it to others, 82% will use its products and services frequently, and 78% will give its new products and services a chance. How do you build trust? By using your marketing channels to educate, provide value, and encourage two-way communication. Stop pushing, selling to, and interrupting your audience. Instead, use inbound marketing practices such as content marketing, lead nurturing, and social media to guide prospective customers through a process that helps them make a safe and comfortable purchase decision.

LEADS!LEADS!

According to HubSpot, conversions from properly executed inbound marketing strategies can be as high as 14.6%, compared to 1.7% for traditional outbound marketing. And by executing strategic, automated campaigns that nurture your prospects through the sales funnel, you can make sure that you aren’t spending time trying to sell to leads that aren’t yet ready to make a decision.

Generate more leads — and more qualified leads

Inbound marketing involves several elements that work together to help you build your audience and establish trust, including social media, blogging, and search engine optimization.

Search engine optimizationApproximately 75% of users never click past the first page of search engine results. If your website doesn’t appear in the top few items of an internet search, chances are your brand won’t be noticed. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important marketing practice for attracting visitors and overall lead generation.

SEO is the process of altering the visibility of a website in a search engine’s unpaid, “organic” results. By administering tactical SEO procedures, you can drive your website or blog entries to appear among the top listings for search engine results.

As mentioned earlier, relevant and useful content is the number one impetus for your search engine rankings. Solid content targeted to your intended user increases overall site traffic, improving your brand’s authority and relevance.


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How inbound marketing works

SEO best practices

• Use tools such as Google Adwords and Google Trends to identify keywords and search queries that are relevant to your industry. Think about how your audience might search for information (by typing phrases like “best barbecue in Kansas City” or “how to rid my cats of fleas”) and use these phrases throughout your content. Use your keywords strategically: elements such as page titles and headers are given more weight by search engines.

• Do NOT try to trick Google. Years ago, unscrupulous tactics such as link schemes, keyword stuffing, and duplicate content may have boosted your website’s visibility, but today those approaches could result in a penalty or filter being placed on your website.

• Don’t forget that mobile internet usage drives more traffic worldwide, but that desktop computer users tend to spend more time on websites. Make sure your website is optimized for viewing on multiple sources, and not just desktop computers.


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BloggingBlogging goes hand in hand with SEO. Businesses that blog generate approximately 126% more leads than non-blogging businesses. Every time you create a new post for your blog, you’re producing fresh content for your website. This means that your website will have more and more pages indexed on search engines like Google, which will increase the number of customers finding your website. More attention will lead to even more attention, as visitors begin to share your content on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Aside from increasing traffic, blogging gives your business the opportunity to display its knowledge and expertise in a given industry, developing trust between your business and your viewers. So not only will blogging help attract potential customers to your website, but your content will keep them coming back — if your content is relevant and useful.

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Blogging best practices

• Remember, the objective of content marketing is to provide value by answering a question or helping your users solve a problem. What problems can you solve for your audience? What questions can you answer? What is your area of expertise?

• Post regularly. Eleven to 16 times per month provides the best rate of return, according to research from HubSpot.

• Focus your content on the needs of your readers, not on information about you or your company. Think about the problems and challenges your audience faces, and come up with content that addresses those concerns. If the content on your blog seems pushy, or if your visitors recognize your content as an advertisement, they are likely to leave and never return to your website.

• Take note of frequently asked questions from your customers or patients and turn those topics into blogs.

• Use your keyword research to determine what sort of information people are looking for online and write content that answers those questions. Try to provide unique industry insights rather than just recycling information users can find elsewhere.

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Social mediaSocial media is a key tool for connecting with your audience. These days, it seems like everyone is on at least one social network. With 2.07 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the most popular, followed by platforms such as YouTube, WhatsApp, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and LinkedIn. Because these are platforms where users spend a significant amount of time, many of them provide excellent marketing opportunities for you to build awareness of your brand — if you know how to use them correctly.


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Social media best practices

• Think of the 80/20 rule when creating content for your social media channels: 80% of your content should provide value, and the other 20% can be about you, your services, and special offers. Post links to your blog, but also post links to articles on other websites that your audience might find interesting.

• Don’t spread yourself too thin trying to post to every available channel. Find out where your audience is spending the most time, and focus your efforts on 2 or 3 channels that make the most sense for your industry.

• Look at how well your content performs and modify your strategy for each platform accordingly. Most social media platforms provide built-in analytics tools so that you can evaluate what kind of content gets the most engagement and what your peak engagement times are.

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Offers and landing pages

AN OFFER YOU CAN’T REFUSE...

In order to convert website visitors into leads and nurture them through the sales funnel, you need a way to capture their contact information. Landing pages are an essential component of any effective inbound marketing strategy.

Targeted landing pages allow you to collect user information in exchange for something of value — often a longer piece of content such as an e-book, a webinar, or a slide presentation. After completing a form on your landing page, the user is added to your database as a new lead.

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Landing page best practices

• Keep landing pages focused on a single idea or piece of information. Don’t present multiple offers on one page or otherwise give the user too many options — this will only create confusion. You want to provide your website visitors with a clear path and clear instructions for what to do next, whether that’s downloading an e-book or signing up for a webinar.

• Use a strong headline and give the user an incentive to fill out your form by conveying the value of what you’re offering. Keep your content brief and emphasize how your offer addresses a specific problem, need, or interest that is important to your audience.

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Lead nurturingDon’t assume that just because someone has responded to an offer on your website that they are ready to make a purchase or will remember to come back to your website. Fifty percent of leads are qualified but not yet ready to buy. A lead nurturing strategy — also referred to as marketing automation or drip marketing — allows you to send an automated series of e-mails to a lead in order to guide them further through the sales funnel.

Automated lead nurturing is a great way to maintain engagement with a lead who has already shown interest in your company and to remind them about your business. If your business is one that involves a longer sales cycle, lead nurturing can be an especially powerful tool in ensuring that your leads don’t slip through the cracks.

Lead nurturing differs from traditional forms of mass e-mail marketing in that you are sending targeted

e-mails to people who have expressed an interest in your services and who want to hear from you. Sixty-six percent of buyers indicate that “consistent and relevant communication” is a key influence in making a purchase decision. Lead-nurturing e-mails get 4-10 times the response rate of standalone e-mail blasts, and typically have a far lower unsubscribe rate than traditional e-mail marketing.

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Lead nurturing best practices

• Create separate segments using forms that allow you to capture the interests or pain points of your contacts.

• Use these areas of interest to create targeted workflows. Don’t send everyone the same generic e-mails. For example, if someone downloads an e-book about tummy tuck surgery, send them a series of emails with more information about abdominoplasty, rather than emails that simply invite them to visit your blog.

• Make sure your follow-up emails continue to provide value and don’t simply promote your services.

• Include calls to action that invite users to take the next step, such as signing up for an informational webinar or downloading a comparison chart.

• Try to identify offers that fall into the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel for each area of interest, especially if your industry has a longer sales cycle.

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Inbound marketing is an involved process that requires businesses to cater to the consumer’s needs. By utilizing proven inbound tactics and promoting your content on the right channels, you can position your brand as a trustworthy industry leader, enabling prospective customers to make their way to your website as they progress through the buyer’s journey. Give your customers what they want, and they will surely come back for more.

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If you’re looking for ways to increase traffic to your website and strengthen your brand with inbound marketing, contact Agency H today! Agency H provides comprehensive inbound marketing services that can help you attract new leads and sell more of your products and services.

An introduction to INBOUND MARKETING · According to HubSpot, conversions from properly executed...

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