The Benefits Of Inbound Marketing

 

Since 2012, the notion of inbound marketing has been rapidly gaining traction. If your marketing knowledge is exclusively centered on the outbound paradigm, inbound methods may sound strange. Nonetheless, nearly a decade after its rise to prominence, numerous firms have embraced inbound to achieve exceptional outcomes and growth. While traditional outbound marketing has a purpose in building brand awareness, it does not cater to the current consumer's eagerness to investigate and compare their options. This approach is used into inbound marketing to develop trusted, long-term relationships with potential clients at all stages of the buyer's journey. Starting a new marketing plan requires a big time investment, therefore we've outlined some of the primary advantages of adopting inbound below. Continue reading to see if it is a good fit for your business goals.

Inbound brings down costs.

In most circumstances, inbound marketing is less expensive and has a higher ROI than outbound marketing. According to a recent HubSpot analysis, inbound marketing leads cost 62% less than outbound prospects. They also discovered that organizations that primarily use inbound marketing save more than $14 (£10) for every new customer acquired.

This makes sense when you examine the price of a billboard display or even a Facebook ad campaign against opening a Twitter account or adding a blog to a website for which you already pay hosting.

There are times when spending more money can result in increased efficiency or traffic to your websites and social media. Set aside some money for search engine marketing, a CRM (more on that later), or outsourcing portions of your content or marketing plan to observe how the pros do it. Whatever you select, there are a variety of scales and options available to meet the demands of your organization.

Inbound traffic is of higher quality.

Inbound marketing has been found to attract visitors who are more likely to become leads and customers when businesses alter their SEO approach to ensure that the relevant traffic can discover them. Creating 1-3 "buyer personas" is an important first step in developing an inbound marketing approach. These are demographic, regional, and psychographic (e.g., motives and goals) profiles of several ideal clients for your product. Having these obvious in the minds of your content writers allows you to target their posts and keywords at very specific times in their journey to become clients. Focusing on specific segments of the audience implies that those who are drawn to your material are more likely to be interested in your solutions from the outset. That means your traffic is already more likely to be a higher quality lead, to convert into a lead in the first place, and to fit your ideal customer profile.

Inbound marketing nurtures your leads and consumers.

In most circumstances, only about 10% of your leads will be able to make an immediate purchase. This leaves you with a large number of leads that have expressed a want to hear more from you before deciding to become a customer, thus nurturing your leads is vital. Historically, this was accomplished by sending out chains of carbon-copy emails to leads, but research has shown that more precise targeting can have a significant impact. Inbound marketing, because it is based on buyer personas, allows you to target certain subsections of your leads with content and offers that feel personalized, allowing them to feel valued and stay engaged with your material. Your CRM may assist you track how long it has been since your leads last connected with you and what they responded to, guiding you in the right direction to close them. Furthermore, they make methods like personalizing mass emails, remembering what information your leads have already supplied, and ensuring information is easily shared between marketing and sales teams easier to adopt. Attract, convert, close, and delight are the three steps of inbound marketing. Going above and beyond for your customers is what delight is all about. Customers that are satisfied spread positive word of mouth, bringing in additional leads and are more likely to return to you.

Inbound marketing boosts brand trust.

In the past, prospective customers had to telephone or physically visit many sellers to compare items and costs. Many shoppers only had time to buy into the first deal that sounded plausible. Anyone can now access lists of your competitors, product reviews, and information about which additional features best suit their wants and requirements with the touch of a button. You can take charge of the conversation and be perceived as an authority figure if you deliver such knowledge. The trick is to be willing to discuss everything your prospects are interested in, including pricing, alternatives, comparisons, reviews, and even disadvantages.

If you produce material that is appropriate to the type of individuals you're selling to, they'll not only visit your site, but they'll return and share it with others - and other sites may link back to your website to spread the word even further. If this occurs, you will become more visible in search engine results since Google regards you as a reputable source. When your website becomes a place where your audience understands they can get unbiased information on your specialty, they are more inclined to give you their contact information and, eventually, their business.

Inbound marketing increases automation and saves you time.

If you're concerned about how long it will take to develop content and nurture leads, there's good news! Overall, your team will have far less administrative work to do. When leads are drawn to you, you may begin to use workflows in your CRM to automatically segment and analyze their qualification as leads based on the criteria you input, resulting in less time spent on customers who will never become clients. Automation can also be set up to send emails to certain groups of your potential clients when they hit certain milestones, requiring you to only set up emails once rather than manually keeping track of and following up with individual leads.

Inbound marketing is available to organizations of all sizes.

Even local outbound techniques like radio commercials or flier distribution may be out of reach for a small firm. Simple inbounding methods, on the other hand, such as setting up approachable social media, are frequently in the naught-to-low price category and may be done on a basic level with relatively little effort. As your company grows, the scope of your inbound marketing efforts might become more ambitious to match the time and resources you have available. This might include paying or contracting an expert to generate your content and optimize your SEO, investing in more dynamic material like video, and so on. Because inbound marketing traffic is easy to track and the costs of adding new content are inexpensive, you have greater leeway to experiment and discover what works in a low-risk manner.

Inbound Marketing Educates Your Prospects

Creating useful and educational material for your customers has numerous advantages. For one thing, as previously stated, it implies prospects perceive your company as a source of assistance and authority, thereby increasing brand credibility. If your free content was important to them, the content behind a paywall or form must be at least as valuable (and that content is where you start to capture lead information).

For another, it means that by the time your traffic turns into leads, they are more likely to be familiar with what you do, your unique selling points, and why you might be useful to them, easing the way for the sale.