I know what you’re thinking. What the heck is inbound marketing? Marketing concepts can sometimes seem like mumbo jumbo – let me explain.
You may have heard us, the Uncle Jake Media team, talk about digital marketing and online marketing. Inbound marketing is often used as a synonym for those terms. In short, it refers to the marketing activity that draws customers to your website or your business. The opposite of Inbound is often referred to as outbound marketing. Is your head spinning yet?
Let's give you a quick breakdown from HubSpot:
Inbound Marketing
Inbound marketing is a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and experiences tailored to them. Inbound Marketing includes activities such as content creation that spreads brand awareness and encourage users to go to your website for information.
Outbound Marketing
Outbound marketing is a traditional method of marketing seeking to push messages out to potential customers. Outbound marketing includes activities such as trade shows, seminar series, and cold calling.
Hubspot has more great content that describes the Inbound marketing methodology and the various stages that go along with it. As a HubSpot Certified Partner, the Uncle Jake Media team is excited to share their helpful resources and help you get the benefit of it. Now that you know the basics of what inbound is, it's time to understand why you need it.
Attract the Right Customers With Inbound Marketing
You may have heard of “the shotgun approach” in marketing. This approach is often involved in outbound marketing efforts where a company sends out marketing materials to a broad audience hoping that it eventually lands in the hands of someone who’s interested. Common examples of this outbound marketing tactic are the massive amounts of coupon flyers you probably get in your mailbox.
Unlike the "shotgun approach" used in outbound methods, Inbound marketing efforts are based on the idea of attracting the right target customers to your business who may already be interested in your product or service. With inbound, it’s no longer a “market and wait” approach, it’s a hands-on strategy driven by analytics and customer-centric content. Instead of stuffing mailboxes, your audience is finding you when they need you.
An advantage of this approach is that sometimes the target audience doesn’t even know that you’re trying to sell them anything! It can be a very natural marketing and sales process.
Lead Generation with Less Effort
The importance of lead generation cannot be overstated. Inbound marketing makes lead generation easier and more trackable. Imagine you have content on your website that would be of interest to your target audience. Even if that person is not quite at the purchase stage, perhaps they’ll sign up for a newsletter, subscribe to your blog, and/or follow you on social media.
Just because they haven’t purchased quite yet doesn’t mean they’ve lost interest in you. With inbound marketing, you’ll have repeat opportunities to draw their interest, stay top of mind, and reel them back in for conversion later on down the line.
To learn more read our article on how to design your website to be an effective marketing tool that helps you generate more leads.
Repeat Customers
In marketing, we know that it’s more costly to attract new customers than to retain old ones. Inbound marketing and the valuable content that we provide make it a positive customer experience. When customers are happy, they’ll leave good Google reviews and keep coming back themselves. That means that not only will they be repeat customers, but they’ll also help drum up more business on your behalf. That’s the dream!
These are just a few reasons why we believe in the power of inbound marketing. If you want to learn more about how to implement those strategies on your own website, contact us today. Or check out our article about successful inbound marketing websites.
Building An Inbound Marketing Strategy
Creating a laser-focused Inbound marketing strategy can offer a higher ROI than outbound techniques, but that is not to say that you don't need both. A successful marketing campaign often uses both inbound and outbound marketing tactics to attract ideal users to their website, convert those users into qualified leads, close the deal with those leads, and delight them as customers.
Building a marketing strategy that does all that can be overwhelming, but it doesn't have to be. Set up a free 15-minute meeting with us to chat about your marketing challenges and see how we can help.
