With a strong inbound marketing strategy, your content and your website will pull in prospective customers, rather than you having to make cold calls or send mass emails to get buyers (outbound marketing).
Inbound marketing is increasingly important, since it's more cost-effective and more targeted than traditional outbound techniques.
What is inbound marketing strategy?
Basically, inbound marketing includes any marketing activity that helps pull customers to your website, store, or product without reaching out to them directly: website pages that drive visitors from Google, blog posts that get shared, and social media that gets liked and followed.
In contrast, outbound marketing includes the more traditional types of marketing: cold calling, mass emails or direct mail, TV or radio advertising, etc.
Your inbound marketing strategy plan should encompass these for focus areas:
Traditional outbound marketing is increasingly challenged by higher costs, privacy regulations, ad "blindness" and ad blocking tech, and an inability to target your customer to the degree that buyers expect in today's market.
On the other hand, inbound marketing allows you to establish more trust with your customers by sharing helpful content "for free", providing information on their terms (when they are searching for it on Google, rather that interrupting them with a phone call), and an ability to target niche sub-markets with personalized messaging.
As you plan your inbound marketing strategy, keep these tips in mind:
It's important for your inbound marketing content to be available in the places where your prospective customers expect to find it:
Ultimately, your marketing plan will probably include a combination of inbound and outbound strategies. Since outbound techniques are usually more expensive, make sure you're using your budget wisely where it has the most impact.
Your inbound marketing strategy should include ways that you can use online content to show your brand's thought leadership in your market, thereby establishing trust with your customer base.
One of the advantages of inbound marketing is that you can develop 2-way relationships with your audience and your customer base. Develop strategies to engage them on social media, via polls or survey questions, or content pieces that elicit comments, shares or engagement.
Use keyword tools (such as Google's free tool) to research what phrases and keywords your customers are using to search for information related to your product or service. Write content that delivers what they are looking for, and answers those questions. This will help your website rank well in the search engines, and pull in more traffic.
Inbound marketing gives you the ability to develop content for different sub-market niches, or different customer stakeholders within your target market. Make sure you're producing content that targets all potential niches or stakeholders with personalized messaging.