How Inbound Marketing Helps Small Businesses [Inbound Overview, Methodology and Tools]
Inbound Marketing: A Business Methodology that Attracts Customers by Creating Valuable Content and Tailored Experiences to their Problems…
Small businesses can grow their operations without breaking their banks by relying on inbound marketing. Most entrepreneurs are sceptical of the traditional marketing strategies that use outbound methods such as television commercials. Viewers do not like commercials in between their videos and most find ways of skipping them.
What is Inbound Marketing?
As people, turn sceptical of sales pitches coming from people that they do not trust and do not know. Inbound marketing builds trust and makes it a pre-requisite for sales. This approach focuses on attracting customers with relevant, useful and interactive content. It uses non-interruptive channels like social media, search engines and blogs to build credibility, trust, and attract prospects.
Inbound Marketing is “a process of helping the potential customers find your company as a solution provider to their problems.”
Inbound Pro Tip:
Inbound is a method of attracting, engaging, and delighting people to grow a business that provides value and builds TRUST.Inbound Marketing is…
a better way to market,
a better way to sell, and
a better way to serve your customers.
Why You Need Inbound Marketing?
Today there is rapid acceleration in information creation at a rate of 2.5 quintillion data bytes daily so much so that, 90% data today came about in the last 2 years alone. Modern buyers are powerful because they can get instant information from the web such as detailed reviews, product specifications and pricing. Anything they want to know about services and goods is available with just some flicks of the thumb.
Inbound marketing gives business the power to give consumers or searchers just the answers they need. This helps to build authority, reputation and trust.
According to HubSpot, Inbound Marketing Best Practices produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound practices. Isn’t it Good for Your Business?
Does Inbound Marketing Work?
A comprehensive survey on consumers and marketers conducted by HubSpot led to some interesting findings.
- 94% of the links search users click on are organic, not paid. (eConsultancy)
- Companies that increase blogging from 3–5x/month to 6–8x/month almost double their leads. (HubSpot)
- Social media has a 100% higher lead-to-close rate than outbound marketing. (HubSpot)
- Companies see a 55% increase in leads from increasing landing pages from 10 to 15. (HubSpot)
- Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales-ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Forrester Research)
75% of inbound organizations believe their marketing strategy is effective. (@HubSpot)
Inbound Marketing Methodology
This includes four steps to transform strangers into visitors and then to leads, customers and finally into brand ambassadors. The steps are the following.
- Attract the right people: For this, you have to publish content that is compelling and answers questions that they have.
- Convert to visitors: Valuable content along with CTA buttons and optimization of landing pages helps to get the contact details. Case studies and free e-books are great ways to collect contact information.
- Lead closing: Once the freebies do their job, it is time to nurture leads, follow-up and use sales tactics transforming leads to paying customers.
- Turn customers into ambassadors: After you close the sales, keep the attention of the customers by delighting them. Keep publishing, share content so that they understand your products and services better. Delighted customers promote your brand to others as well.
Getting started with Inbound Marketing…
