What Is Inbound Marketing & How To Make The Most Of It
Inbound marketing can be one of the best sources of sales and relationship building available to a business. By creating valuable content and sharing relatable experiences, you attract clients by connecting with them through their search for your business, or rather service offering. This is a big difference from outbound marketing which can often cause an interruption in someone’s search with information they were not looking for.
The following 3 steps will help you make it easier for your perspective clients to find you rather than you trying to find them. The key is honing in on how your products and services solve the problems your ideal clients are experiencing and seeking solutions for. Once you do that, you can create a connection with them and eventually convert them.
1 – Determine Your Ideal Client:
Sounds simple enough, but determining your ideal client is key to attracting the right client for your business and will require some research on your part. Finding out what grabs the attention of people will help you draw them in and get them interested and engaged with you and your products and service.
A great starting point is your social media insights. Through this, you can begin to learn who your target demographic is and what they engage with most on your site. Determining that, will guide you in developing content that will elicit a similar reaction in others. Engagement is key and zeroing in on how to refine it can be a fun and fulfilling process.
Another useful source for learning more about your ideal client is a simple survey. If you don’t ever ask, it’s hard to know!
If you do not already have one in use, I strongly recommend developing at least a quick survey to start to get feedback. Tools like Survey Monkey, Google Forms or Typeform make great tools to do this with. It’s a useful tool when it comes to asking questions about needs and pain points. A simple Needs Analysis is a great start but you can take it further to get more detailed information on your current clients behaviors as well. This effort will not just help you understand how to better connect with clients, but will also strengthen their view of you as a company that cares.
2 – Create Your Content:
Now that you have a better understanding of your client it’s time to start making compelling content and build the strength of your SEO. Your business is unique and you want to share that with potential clients. You also want to convey relevance. Steer clear of generic posts and descriptions. Instead, tailor your material to your audience. If questions arrived from your survey, or from regular customer questions – answer those! Pull them in with a good headline and then address what you have found to be of interest to them. That headline is what’s going to generate the initial interest and clicks so put time into creating it.
Don’t be afraid of a bit of negativity in that headline either. Starting things off with “Why you should never” and “Common mistakes” can go a long way to attracting attention. It’s not something you want to make a habit of, but as long as the content is relevant and helpful, it’s a good way to get the ball rolling.
Be sure to mix up the media being used when posting as well. Variations of video, product images, and even charts will keep people from scrolling past. Stories that relate to your client are useful as well as anything you can back up with data. Always be sure to reinforce the relevance of what you are offering and make it relatable.
3 – Connect & Convert:
Once you have figured out who your client is and how best to pull them in, it’s time to convert them. Don’t let all of that hard work go to waste!
One of the easier ways to do that is linking your message to a corresponding landing page on your site where you can complete the transaction. This will aid in growing visits, leads, and buyers. You can also use this as an opportunity to stay in contact with the client or prospect should they not convert. Capturing their information, or requesting it, when they move to exit, will go a long way in keeping you connected. If you’ve answered the question well enough, you should look to establish enough trust that a person feels comfortable leaving their email with you to continue getting answers in the future!
These few methods will help you build your audience, extend your reach, and increase sales. In doing so, you will also have the added benefit of strengthening your SEO and building your reputation as a go to in your industry. The more you address the needs of your customers and stay on topic, the better and stronger the long-term relationship will become.
