What is inbound marketing?

Inbound Marketing is an innovative approach to marketing that targets the interests of the target customer audience. By using social media platforms, branding, and search engine optimization, companies are able to draw customers in by presenting them with content that meets a specific need and helps them solve a problem. This ensures that the customer is always presented with information that is relevant to their needs and interests them personally.

As opposed to outbound marketing which can be distracting and frustrating for customers as it pulls them away from their current online tasks; inbound marketing works together with the customer by presenting them with helpful connections that correlate with a particular problem they are trying to solve or purpose they are using the Internet for.

How do you begin to promote your business in the world of Inbound Marketing and make it viable for your success? The road begins here.

ATTRACT

The inbound marketing approach often utilizes three distinct strategies, the first one being to attract the customer. In this approach, businesses harness the power to attract the right kind of clients to their business. Each business is looking for a specific type of client and inbound marketing helps to channel the perfect customer to their website.

There are several strategies that can be used to attract your objective audience and each of these strategies begin on the same path which starts with content creation and advancement. To reach your target base, begin by creating useful and readable content such as blog postings or social media posts which all focus on solving a customer’s common problem. Each post should ultimately lead to your company’s web page. Postings should be attractive and include incentives for your customers to take part in such as exclusive sales and promotions.

To attract your target audience on an even more profound level it is imperative to enhance your content and information with an SEO strategy. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it will allow your company’s postings and content to exist naturally on a search engine’s results page. In order to do this, you can highlight certain keywords or phrases that are common among search engine searches to help bring your content to the forefront.

ENGAGE

The second important strategy in the core inbound marking technique is to engage your target audience. Once you have attracted them to your business through your interesting content and problem-solving solutions you must now engage them with content that will be useful in solving their dilemmas. In this strategy you will be using the customers’ ultimate goal in searching and make it align with your company.

It is during the engage strategy that you begin to build a relationship with your customer base and show them your expertise and responsiveness. This strategy is often referred to as the sales strategy because it involves things that most sales workers would do on a daily basis. From making sales calls and email communication to assuring clients of your business’ integrity, it is important to build a trustworthy relationship with your customers by using this strategy.

While you are taking part in this important strategy it is key to remember your ultimate goal in advertising, which is to sell solutions rather than products. This will lend its way to happy, satisfied customers which clearly leads us into the next and last strategy of inbound marketing which is delighting the customer.

DELIGHT

This third and final strategy in the inbound marketing technique ensures that your customers are satisfied and it assures them that you are always available to help, even after a purchase has been made. This strategy enables the customer to attain their goals through their purchase. Because when customers come away from their customer relationship with you satisfied and having had their needs met they are very likely to share their positive experience with others which leads more clients to you. This attraction of new clients then creates a self-supporting cycle for your company. This end goal is why each step in the inbound marketing strategy is so important, because it will ultimately lead to the growth of your business.

So how can we go about delighting customers and leading them to share their positive experiences with others? Well, there are several possibilities that you can harness and use to your advantage.

One such way to do this is to provide your customer with well-timed feedback and quick responsiveness to questions. This will most likely mean that your company will need to hire some personnel to take on this important role full time as your company grows is client base. Onsite chatrooms that specifically come from your website while customers are browsing are a great way to provide instant guidance to a customer as it is needed.

Surveys are also an excellent way for customers to share their thoughts and information allowing you to better serve your target audience in the future. Surveys are more likely to be filled out by past clients when a small incentive is attached to them such as a small discount on a future purchase. This allows you to gain the insightful information that you need, while pleasing the customer and hopefully leading to a future purchase.

Another excellent strategy used to delight customers is through social media. This simply means creating and keeping close tabs on your social media accounts and listening to what your customers are asking for.

Often customers will look for social media platforms to share their thoughts about your business which can be seen by millions of other potential clients. Respond positively to these postings and provide them with insightful information and gratitude for their business.

SUMMARY

In the end, the key to delighting the customer and making the inbound marketing strategy truly work all comes down to excellent customer service. To truly delight the customer, you need to approach this subject with an attitude of service rather than self-service.

The point of customer service should not be to get anything of value from it for yourself but for the customer first. When you approach your business in this way you are much more likely to be greatly rewarded with business, because a happy customer becomes your biggest fan and brand ambassador.