Inbound marketing is a concept that has existed for a long time, but many business owners or people considering launching a business don’t fully understand it. You might be familiar with some of the elements of inbound marketing, but it’s important to make sure you know exactly what it involves and how it can benefit your business.
Inbound marketing takes a customer-focused approach, allowing people to find their own way to your brand instead of using more intrusive outbound marketing methods. Keep reading to find out how inbound marketing can work for your business, and maybe how it already is without you realising it.
Understanding Inbound Marketing
The internet has expanded the capabilities of inbound marketing. Inbound is all about utilising things like quality content to get customers to pay attention to your brand. It involves using several different marketing methods, from SEO to blogging and social media.
The idea is that you bring people to your brand, offering them interesting and informative content and showing them how you can solve the problems they have. It’s an excellent choice for small businesses because it can help you to save money. Instead of being intrusive and interruptive, it’s about encouraging customers to come to you.
The Benefits of Inbound
There are some excellent reasons to choose inbound marketing over traditional outbound methods. If you most of your marketing is based online, you’ll have a lot more success with inbound marketing than you will with more intrusive outbound methods, such as paid email lists.
People much prefer to go looking for brands themselves, rather than have them thrust in their faces when they’re not looking. The cost of acquiring new customers is much lower with inbound marketing, which is excellent news for small businesses, in particular. Inbound marketing grows organically and picks up momentum too, making it easier to continue your efforts.
Learning the Main Methods
Getting a grip on some of the main techniques used in inbound marketing is useful for any small business owner. It’s worth learning a range of key skills, such as how to build a successful landing page or what type of content to offer at different stages in the buying process.
However, it’s also a good idea to work with expert marketers, like an SEO agency or content marketing firm, to learn more about effective inbound marketing. For a good way to get started, try taking the free inbound marketing course from Hubspot.
Applying Inbound Techniques to Your Business
When you feel like you’ve started to learn about how to effectively utilise inbound marketing techniques, you should make sure you’re applying the techniques to your business. As mentioned above, working with experts who have experience in different inbound marketing methods is very useful. However, even if you’re managing all your own marketing, you can still take smart steps to create a good inbound marketing strategy.
Inbound marketing should be a focus for your small business. You can also combine it with inbound sales for a comprehensive strategy to bring in and keep customers.
Maria Fonseca is the Editor and Infographic Artist for IntelligentHQ. She is also a thought leader writing about social innovation, sharing economy, social business, and the commons. Aside her work for IntelligentHQ, Maria Fonseca is a visual artist and filmmaker that has exhibited widely in international events such as Manifesta 5, Sao Paulo Biennial, Photo Espana, Moderna Museet in Stockholm, Joshibi University and many others. She concluded her PhD on essayistic filmmaking , taken at University of Westminster in London and is preparing her post doc that will explore the links between creativity and the sharing economy.