Inbound Marketing: What if instead of chasing new customers, you could make them come to you? What if instead of advertising to an eclectic, sprawling, cluttered mass, you could speak directly to the people relevant to your business?
What if, instead of getting in the way and acting inconveniently, your advertising could help and delight those who saw it?
This type of marketing already exists and is used with great success by brands that have decided to innovate. And best of all, it’s not just reserved for companies with astronomical budgets.
Take a few minutes to read today and see how Inbound Marketing can make a big difference in the future of your business.
Permission Is Key
Seth Godin presented the foundations of Inbound Marketing in his book Permission Marketing. In this work, Godin explained how interruptive marketing would lose ground to a new communication form that considers segmentation and the viewer’s experience.
When the internet became massive, it didn’t just bring new channels to sell. It also got a new way of relating to the public. Thus, he started to choose what to read, watch, listen to, and taste… and to choose the time and the way to interact with the content that interested him.
Because of all this, the public has become much less patient with any advertising that invades their space or interrupts their experience. Therefore, having permission to speak with him became fundamental. The question then became how to get that permission.
Content And Relevance
For starters, you need to make an effort to understand who your audience is and what they want. Luckily, the internet is also an excellent tool for this. With the right tools, you can collect all the essential data by segmenting your communication and becoming more assertive.
So, with this information, make your brand helpful to your target. Help. And do this long before you even think about offering anything. As? With good content.
By content, we don’t mean that any excellent text or video will do. It is necessary to invest in relevant content, that is, in what your audience wants to know and perceive as valuable information.
You must deliver value in the form of content. You must provide value once, twice, three, or ten times, until you create a positive relationship with your target audience. As a result, the day you finally ask for something in return (usually in the form of a sale), he’ll be much more inclined to oblige.
This process of delivering value through content within Inbound Marketing uses some already consolidated strategies that help to achieve the most efficient result possible. The main one is known as a funnel.
Use The Funnel
The Sales Funnel represents the consumer’s journey throughout their contact with the brand’s content, with each stage (or part of the funnel) having a specific function.
It starts at the top, where the potential customer searches for a specific topic, learns about the brand, and then consumes your content. No sales attempt is made now, as the objective is to inform and educate.
In the middle of the funnel, we have the consideration stage, when the audience has learned more about their needs/desires and starts looking for a way to meet them.
It is the right time to deepen and build a stronger relationship. A good strategy is to ask for contact details in exchange for even better content.
At the bottom of the funnel is that portion of the public that, after learning about and delving into the subject, understands that they need to make a purchase decision.
This is where you should use the content in another way, showing that your company is the right choice. Since you’ve already put a lot of time and effort into building a relationship through the previous steps, you’re already at an advantage.
Show the prospect they’re in good hands, close the sale, and keep improving that relationship.
Inbound Is More Than That
But Inbound is not just about permission, content, and funnel. Of course, these are all essential parts of this new form of marketing, but it goes much further.
He uses all these strategies and puts them in a bigger plan, which also considers the different possibilities of online communication to impact the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
Inbound Marketing can explore social media, SEO, blogs, landing pages, sponsored links, email marketing, and many other outreach channels to speak to your audience in the best way possible for both of you.
And the more you embrace the potential of Inbound, the better you will know your audience, analyze data, produce content, and profit. It is a virtuous cycle that benefits all parties.
Over time, you will even be able to automate much of the process and achieve savings of up to 60% compared to conventional marketing.
