When it comes to marketing your new business, there are a lot of different methods you will be recommended to try out. This can make it tricky to work out which one is best for you and your business.
Not only are you spoilt for choice, but some methods are not always adequately explained – leaving a lot of business owners feeling confused and pushed into one direction.
So, if you want to learn more about inbound marketing, then this is the place for you. We are going to be discussing what it is and how you can use it to help expand your business.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is based on inbound methodology, which is the method of growing your business by putting your customers and consumers first.
As a result, the business tries to build meaningful connections with their customers, preferring to concentrate on a smaller audience of recurring customers rather than trying to bring in new consumers again and again.
The reason behind this method is that businesses believe that by keeping customers happy and feeling appreciated, their continued support towards the business will help it succeed.
There are three different ways inbound methodology is applied to businesses – attraction, engagement, and delight. Each way feeds into the other like parts of a wheel, creating a loop that will keep the same customers coming back for more.
As a result, you can generate revenue and build yourself a loyal customer base on which you can guarantee your business’s continued success.
Marketing Strategies Based On Inbound Methodology
Each three parts of inbound methodology can be translated into their own unique marketing strategies.
Companies will usually flow from one into the other and repeat the cycle as their customer base grows and grows. So, check out these strategies to see if there are any that speak to you and your business.
Attraction Strategy
This marketing strategy is all about attracting your audience and transforming them into customers.
As a result, this strategy focuses heavily on the creation and publication of content, using keywords to optimize your website’s appearance in search engine results pages, and using your analytics to tailor your content to match popular phrases and topics.
Most businesses start to plump up their websites with lots of content pieces and interaction with their visitors. From blogs, articles, social media posts, and offers – they begin by creating and publishing content so visitors have a reason to visit the website.
SEO is also a huge part of this strategy as it involves utilizing keywords to help find your base customers. As a result, you will have to undertake a lot of keyword research with this strategy.
The results will be a website full of interesting content that will not only attract new visitors through great use of SEO, but also reduce your bounce rate and increase your likelihood of impressing your customers with your content, bringing them back for more.
Engagement Strategy
While the attraction strategy focuses on bringing your customers in, the engagement strategy focuses on helping keep those customers coming back for more.
Instead of relying on published content, the engagement strategy takes the approach of communicating with customers directly to build a realistic ‘friendship’ between the customer and your business.
This kind of engagement usually involves direct communication through polls, personal emails or posts, responding to queries, and more.
As a result, most businesses that opt for this strategy opt for email marketing and automation to help directly reach each customer and customize the content they see depending on their preferences.
For example, an e-commerce website would email specific customers that the item on their wishlist is on sale or low in stock.
If you run a blog about novels, you can email customers to announce news concerning their favorite author or series. As you can see, the engagement strategy can be used in all kinds of online businesses.
The rewards it reaps includes a loyal customer base where each one feels personally connected to your business, has a deeper understanding of your business’s goals and content, and thus they are more likely to recommend your website to others in their circles.
Delight Strategy
This strategy is one of the easiest to understand and implement into your business. It basically focuses on keeping your customers happy and satisfied with the content and services they experience.
The focus here is on user experience ranging from the kind of content you publish to how they navigate your website.
As a result, those who opt for this strategy focus on providing assistance and support to their customers. They love to request feedback so they can constantly improve their website to suit the customer’s needs.
Such tools these businesses use include surveys and chatbots as a way to directly communicate with their customers to clearly find out their wants and needs. Social media is also another great tool to use to ask for feedback
The results are very clear – not only does your business build up an image where they prioritize their customers and their wellbeing, but you can constantly stay on top of what your customers love and hate.
This makes it so easy to customize and adjust your website to fix any issues and repeat previous successes.
Final Thoughts
So, inbound marketing is a method that prioritizes your customers and aims to build a loyal customer base using three individual strategies.
These strategies focus on creating relevant content, building personal relationships with your customers, and ensuring that your website suits their wants and needs.
This will keep your customers happy and encourage them to share your website within their circles of like-minded friends.
As a result, your business will become a constant success because you will always have the same base of reliable customers revisiting your website no matter what.
Hi, my name is Justin Shaw, I started my career with a Masters in Computer Science but found writing to be my forte'.
I'm now the Principal Tech writer for GshiftLabs.com as well as a few other well known publications. I help make the complex world of Tech-Jargon easy to understand.
