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Last Updated on April 2, 2024 by Work In My Pajamas
If you’ve been searching for marketing inspiration, you’ve heard about inbound marketing. It’s recently taken center stage among marketing professionals.
Three-quarters of companies that use an inbound methodology feel it’s effective.
This guide will show how an inbound marketing strategy works and how it could help your business.
In This Post:
Defining the Inbound Methodology
Before you decide to get behind any marketing strategy, make sure you understand it. So, how do you define inbound marketing?
The easiest way to define inbound is to compare it to outbound marketing strategies. Outbound focuses on broadcasting messages to a large, passive audience. This includes TV ads, radio spots, and other methods.
Inbound, by contrast, focuses on more targeted audiences. These people are interested in your product and most likely to respond. Inbound also focuses on bringing people to you.
Outbound techniques were common for decades, but they’ve never been terribly effective. Inbound sees better results.
The Components of Inbound Marketing
Why is inbound marketing so effective? There are three major reasons:
- It connects you to people who are interested and motivated.
- It’s interactive.
- It focuses on building relationships.
The difference is easy to see in a comparison. When you buy a TV spot, your ad is broadcast to millions of people. How many of those people are actually interested in what you’re selling?
The TV spot also doesn’t allow these people to interact with you. The audience is passive in this case. Very few of them will take action after seeing an ad.
Inbound, by contrast, leverages an interested audience. Suppose someone is doing research on the best payroll software for their business. When they search for information about what to look for, a blog post you’ve written comes up in the results.
Chances are this person is interested in buying payroll software. They’re motivated to know more. They click on your blog post and read it.
As they do more research, they trust you because you provide great information and advice. They then decide to get in touch with you.
This process reflects the four stages of an inbound methodology strategy:
- Attract: You offer information, expertise, or entertainment to people who are already looking.
- Engage: You encourage people to interact with your brand. They might post comments or reach out and get in touch.
- Delight: You continue to build a relationship with the lead by offering them advice and help.
This strategy helps you find more leads and close more deals. If you want to know more about how the strategy works in practice, check out these experts. Their in-depth guide will inspire you.
The Benefits of Inbound
As we mentioned, inbound can help you find more leads and convert more of them. It helps you attract more of the right leads. Its focus on relationship-building also helps.
As a result, inbound can help you increase sales and revenue. It’s also better for building a pipeline and sustained customer relations.
Other benefits include lower costs per lead and better brand recognition.
Adopt Inbound Today
If you want to give your business’s marketing a boost, adopting the inbound methodology is a smart move.
Looking for more great marketing advice? Take a look at our blog. We have plenty of tips and tricks just for you.
