{"id":20053,"date":"2022-10-24T12:42:29","date_gmt":"2022-10-24T19:42:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/besttech2earnonline.com\/?p=20053"},"modified":"2024-04-07T18:32:51","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T01:32:51","slug":"inbound-marketing-fundamentals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/besttech2earnonline.com\/inbound-marketing-fundamentals\/","title":{"rendered":"The Basics and Fundamentals of Inbound Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"
In all great stories, the concept of the hero’s journey is simple. The beloved hero goes on a quest, faces untold difficulty, but rises victorious and returns home transformed.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n They’ll have help along the way, of course. Often taking the form of a sage or wizard, there’s usually someone who aids the hero on their adventure, providing guidance and advice.<\/p>\n This guardian helps the hero grow to their fullest potential and achieve what they set out to do.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When it comes to marketing, the role of the sage advisor falls to you. Every prospect and customer is on a quest to accomplish a set of goals.<\/p>\n They may not know where their journey with you will lead them quite yet, but as a marketer, it\u2019s your job to act as a guide.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n This means being ready for any of your visitors\u2019 questions or concerns when they need answers the most. Why? In short, your help, education, and attention builds trust between you and your prospect or customer.<\/p>\n The question then becomes, how do you scalable-y interact with the multitude of buyers pursuing your site and marketing channels?<\/p>\n How do you go beyond answering questions to empower and inspire so many potential buyers? The answer is Inbound marketing.<\/p>\n Inbound marketing<\/a> is a strategy that attracts and retains customers by creating valuable content and tailored experiences.<\/p>\n Inbound marketing forms connections customers are looking for and solves problems they already have.<\/p>\n While outbound marketing interrupts your audience with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing seamlessly integrates into a buyer’s decision-making landscape.<\/p>\n Effective inbound marketing relies on the successful implementation of the inbound methodology across all your marketing strategies.<\/p>\n The inbound methodology is a method for growing an organization by building lasting relationships with people and helping them reach their goals. This is carried out in three stages: attract, engage, and delight.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s examine and review the marketing applications for each stage: attract, engage, and delight.<\/p>\n In the attract stage, you attract visitors with useful content and eliminate barriers as they learn about your company. The key is to earn people’s attention, not force it.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When applied to marketing, this means using strategies like blogging<\/a>, SEO<\/a>, social media marketing<\/a>, paid search ads, and display advertising.<\/p>\n Together, these approaches will help you reach your target buyers on the channels they\u2019re using to look for solutions to their problems, ways to achieve their goals, or browse new products and services of interest.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Pro-tip:<\/em> Focus on the attract stage if your goal is to generate more traffic<\/a> and leads.<\/p>\n In the engage stage, you make it easy for customers to shop and buy from you by enabling buyers to interact with you on their preferred timelines and channels. Here, you focus on opening relationships, not just closing deals.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When applied to marketing, this means using website and email personalization<\/a>, database segmentation, marketing automation, lead nurturing, and multichannel communication (such as chat and messaging).<\/p>\n These tools help you build trust with your leads and start to deliver awesome content at every stage in their decision-making process.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Pro-tip:<\/em> Focus on the engage stage if you are looking to convert more leads and prospects or trying to lower the cost to acquire new customers.<\/p>\n Finally, in the delight stage, you help, support, and empower customers to reach their goals. Here, you focus on creating buzz around your brand<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n When applied to marketing, this means using social mentions, reviews, word-of-mouth marketing, a customer loyalty program, or user-generated content.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Oftentimes, this requires you to shift your resources so they’re more effectively distributed throughout the entire customer experience.<\/p>\n The payoff comes in the form of more loyal customers and new referral traffic to your site.<\/p>\n This brings us to our last pro tip: <\/p>\n Focus on the delight stage if you\u2019re looking to improve your customer retention, customer lifetime value, and referrals.<\/strong><\/p>\n Overall, these strategies help you remain present and in tune with your leads and customers. But effective implementation of any of these strategies at any stage requires a few processes to be in place.<\/p>\n They will act as guardrails and ensure no matter the exact strategy or tactic you use, your buyers are at the center of everything you do.<\/p>\n To start, you need to research and fully understand who you\u2019re trying to reach<\/a>.<\/p>\n After all, you don\u2019t want just any traffic to your site. You want the right traffic.<\/p>\n And the right traffic is the visitors who are most likely to become leads, and, ultimately, happy customers. These visitors fit your buyer personas.<\/p>\n Buyer personas<\/a> are created through research, analysis, and taking a close look at who\u2019s already buying from you. They can help you get into the mindset of your potential buyers and create the right content.<\/p>\n Buyer personas help you identify groups in your customer base that share similar demographics, psychographics, and behaviors.<\/p>\n They reveal what these groups of visitors want to see, when to deliver it, and how to better service folks throughout their lifecycle with your business.<\/p>\n This information about who your leads are and their preferences will also help inform how you’ll go about personalizing your content to fit their needs \u2014 which brings us to the buyer\u2019s journey<\/a>.<\/p>\n Throughout the buyer’s journey, your visitors will overcome their challenges and accomplish their goals differently.<\/p>\n You\u2019ll need to understand what they\u2019re thinking and \u2014 potentially more importantly \u2014 feeling, as they progress toward making a purchase.<\/p>\n That way you can match them step-for-step; from the awareness that a problem exists, to consideration of the potential solutions, until they reach a decision.<\/p>\n Knowing who your leads and customers are, the type of content they want to interact with, and when they need content is a great first step.<\/p>\n Next, you need to know about their preferred platforms and methods of communication. That is, where would they like to engage online?<\/p>\n Think critically about your publishing and distribution channels. Consider how you\u2019re leveraging ads, engagement, and business pages on platforms like Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, or Twitter.<\/p>\n Are your buyers turning to search engines like Google for research? Consider your content strategy. Where are you currently ranking with content like pillar pages, blog posts, or video content?<\/p>\n This may seem like a lot of information to unpack and understand upfront. But, doing this research and getting these answers will inform how you reach and engage with users. This level of personalization pays off.<\/p>\n According to a study conducted by Epsilon, 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase when brands offer personalized experiences.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore, Adobe found that 67% of consumers think it\u2019s important for brands to automatically adjust content based on the current context.<\/p>\n That same study cautioned that 42% of consumers will “get annoyed” if brands don’t adjust their content to their needs. Which, in your day-to-day, is why you need segmentation and automation.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n These strategies help you ensure your outreach and lead nurturing are both efficient and effective<\/p>\n Now, customers expect unique experiences. This includes tailored recommendations, dynamic content, and exclusive offers.<\/p>\nWhat is inbound marketing?<\/h2>\n
Marketing applications of the inbound methodology<\/h2>\n
Attract stage<\/h3>\n
Engage stage<\/h3>\n
Delight stage<\/h3>\n
Buyer Personas<\/h2>\n
Personalization pays off<\/h2>\n
Unique user experiences<\/h3>\n