Traditional marketing strategies such as Outbound Marketing are having less and less of an impact in our modern society. Because people are constantly being bombarded by information – 510,000 comments are being posted and 293,000 statuses are being updated on Facebook in one minute alone – the marketing philosophies that worked in the past decades are starting to lose their magic.
61% of businesses stated that generating traffic and leads was their greatest marketing challenge. The old digital marketing methodologies that businesses relied on are clearly no longer the way to go.
In recent years there's been a shift in customer behaviour. Buyers have taken back control of their buying process and are now directing all communication and contact along the buying cycle. They manage what content they want to see and can deflect things like Outbound Marketing with the push of a button. Taking this into account, a new solution is needed.
Enter Inbound Marketing
To offer companies with a more effective way to grow, HubSpot developed the Inbound Marketing strategy. It takes into consideration the new attitudes of modern customers to most effectively attract leads for your business.
In Inbound Marketing not only are you aligning the image your brand projects with the desires of your target audience. You’re helping this audience make good decisions and adding value to their research, rather than constantly trying to sell to them. This makes for an overall more personalised and genuine interaction with potential buyers.
Whereas in the past a business would represent itself, the mission is now to represent the customer. And similarly, rather than finding customers, companies are now concentrating on being found.
Mass advertising turns into targeted, valuable content and 1 on 1 dialogue. The target audience is based on consumer behavior rather than demographics. And the goal has drifted from point-in-time blasts to continuous relationships.
The Inbound Marketing Methodology
The Inbound Marketing strategy is centered around a simple idea. Instead of looking outwards for customers, a brand focuses on perfecting its image and its appearance to the rest of the world in order to attract buyers.
Unlike other marketing philosophies, it is based on optimising every stage of the relationship with a prospective customer and enhancing their customer experience.
According to HubSpot, there are three aspects to the Inbound Marketing Methodology: Attract, Engage, and Delight. Each of these attributes play a defining role in Marketing and Sales!
1. Attract
When posting content online, the main goal is to attract people who are most likely to become leads and, ultimately, happy customers. This means presenting yourself in the right way and at the right time in order to find these potential buyers.
From a marketing point of view, attracting the right customer involves various content strategy tools, such as constructing effective ads, videos, and blogs, and making the most use out of social media. You should also discover the message of your company. What makes you more unique and interesting than other firms?
Sales, the next step in creating the B2B relationship, also relies on attracting potential customers. Ensure that you can easily connect with people through verbal and written conversations, and most importantly, be accessible all the time! Having a meetings page on your website makes it easy for customers to engage with you.
2. Engage
Once you have successfully been found by your target audience, you want to engage in communication with them in order to forge a lasting relationship.
To engage customers on the marketing side of things, it’s a good idea to install email, bots, live chat, or messaging apps. It allows you to constantly stay in contact with your buyers. Conversion tools such as calls to action (CTA), forms, and lead flows help you capture information on the people visiting your website. This data can help you personalise the prospects’ experience on your website. It increases the chances of establishing brand loyalty through creating smart, social content and implementing additional features.
Using the Inbound Methodology to engage customers in sales centers around simplifying the process of customers getting in contact with your business. As HubSpot describes, “Use documents to track how much time people are spending with your content, and make it easy for these people to put time on your calendar by using meetings links.” They include using “calling to record and transcribe the calls you make and playbooks to guide your interactions with people. Use quotes to make your recommendations crystal clear. Automate pieces of your sales process with workflows so you can respond to people faster.”
3. Delight
Keep your customers delighted through regular updates. By producing memorable content, you will maintains a high level of interest among customers and sustain their satisfaction with your company.
Delighting customers on a marketing level means offering information in a variety of mediums so that different types of customers can share what you have to offer with other people. This is referred to as smart content. It’s essential that you carefully choose the delivery platforms you want to use to implement this information. Email marketing and conversations inbox coupled with marketing automation further ensures that you can “create contextual conversations with the people you do business with.”
Verbal communication such as meetings, conversations and quotes are the key to delighting customers in sales. Sales automation and smart notifications speed up this process and allow for a seamless transition into a long-term relationship.
The concepts Attract, Engage, and Delight combine to create a space where businesses can build trust, credibility, and momentum with their customers. Inbound Marketing enables you to attract new prospects to your company, engage with them at scale, and delight them individually.
The Benefits of Inbound Marketing
The major benefit of Inbound Marketing is that you have to earn the attention of your customers, which allows for longer term relationships. By engaging with customers that trust and believe in your company, you can nurture a fulfilling business-customer relationship. What’s good for the customer is good for the company!
Whereas Outbound Marketing is interruptive with features such as spam emails, invasive ads, and cold calling, your inbound efforts respects the target audience. You ask for permission to contact them through more effective techniques. As opposed to “renting” their attention, you’re establishing a real bond with customers. You solidify your chances not only for a real partnership but of the introduction of new clients through their network.
The great thing about Inbound Marketing is its versatility. As CEO of HubSpot, Inbound Marketing Author and MIT Professor Brian Halligan describes, the methodology isn’t just for marketing. It can be applied to other areas such as sales and is applicable to whatever niche area your business practices in. The only certainty with Inbound Marketing is that it will feed the unprecedented growth and stability of your company.
The Future of Marketing
In summary, Inbound Marketing offers a holistic experience for customers by combining marketing, sales, service, and customer relationship all in one. It exceeds the traditional toolkit of B2B marketers because it prevents over-promising and under-performing.
By creating relevant content tailored to each client, businesses and customers are always on the same page. We offer four services that work together to provide the ultimate Inbound Marketing journey.
1. Content Marketing
In a world where competition is on the rise, high-quality, attractive content is becoming increasingly important. B2B companies that blog 1-2 times a month generate 70% more leads than those who don’t.
Together with you, we brainstorm, plan, strategize and create high-quality content for every step of the buyer’s journey.
Telling your story and vision is our passion! Through informative, insightful and appealing content, we give your company a voice that can be heard above the rest. Discover over half a dozen tools we offer that allow us do so.
2. Lead Generation
It all starts with a lead! Without initial contact, no new customers can be won. Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost.
B2B lead generation is at the heart of every inbound marketing strategy. It's about leading potential customers to your business in a self-service process.
This means potential customers are the ones to approach you because they find your offer appealing!
3. Marketing Automation
Businesses that use marketing automation to nurture prospects experience a 451% increase in qualified leads!
With the automation of data-driven tasks, we relieve your marketing staff and maximize the potential of your collected customer data. This allows you to easily identify potential customers and offer them support along the buyer's journey.
Using the inbound marketing software HubSpot, we oversee your marketing strategy as a certified HubSpot Agency Partner and provide professional support to optimize your campaigns.
4. SEO
A carefully devised search engine optimization (SEO) strategy is crucial if you want to attract a steady flow of organic traffic. 75% of search engine users never scroll past the first page of search results, so maximizing your online presence is key!
Based on SEO analyses and the evaluation of your customer data, our team provides intelligent search engine optimization. Every page and every blog post on your website is scrutinized and adapted to ensure your business generates more search traffic from your exact target audience.
Free Inbound Marketing Audit
Implement Inbound Marketing now to adapt to the evolution of buyer behaviour. Get more leads and convert more customers through inbound marketing!
Svensson & Friends offers you a unique, customised Inbound Marketing Audit. It helps identify the areas of your business on which to focus, so you can maximise results.
Sign up for your free Inbound Marketing Audit!
