According To WIKIPEDIA,
Inbound marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing andSeth Godin's idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends[3] that marketers "earn their way in" (via publishing helpful information on a blog etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to "buy, beg, or bug their way in" (via paid advertisements, issuing press releases in the hope they get picked up by the trade press, or paying commissioned sales people, respectively). Brian Halligan, cofounder and CEO of HubSpot, claims[4] he coined the usage of the term in this sense.
In the past couple years, you may have noticed that in the marketing world, there’s much mention of the term "Inbound Marketing." It’s gaining more and more popular, and people are more interested in what Inbound Marketing is and how it can help them.
Inbound Marketing is really the practice of attracting warm, qualified leads into your sales funnel by way of uploading good content value on your sites rather than reaching outward to cold, untargeted audience. Actually for sometime now many internet marketers who participate in blogging, and active in various social media sites are “inbound marketing”. Therefore, some of the most popular Inbound Marketing techniques are blogging, interacting on social media, “You Tubing”, search engine optimization, and webinars.
Inbound Marketing is becoming more popular as marketers look for more efficient and affordable ways to acquire new leads and sales. All of these inbound methods pre-qualify the leads that discover your company, so you can be sure that your message is greeting welcoming ears rather than random outbound contacts. By bringing these targeted leads to your business, you will greatly save time and money than on the traditional marketing methods.
Traditional marketing now termed as "outbound marketing" was largely focused on outbound methods such as cold calls, print ads, attending tradeshows, etc. The idea behind these methods was to get in front of as many leads and warm them up to the point where they would try your product or service. This form of marketing was largely a numbers game - you knew you had to, on average, get in contact with a certain large number of people before one of them would be interested and make a purchase. This method was inefficient and expensive, causing marketers to waste time getting in contact with tons of people who may have had no interest in their offering.
How Can I Use Inbound Marketing?
The most important part of successful inbound marketing strategy is creating great content that will bring people into your sales process. Another important element is ensuring that you have a site that is optimized to close leads into deals and engages visitors once they "land" on your website.
One of the most popular methods to accomplish this goal is by maintaining a blog which can provide many benefits for your business.
A blog in relation to Inbound Marketing is when it is regularly updated with great content, which will gradually rise in organic search results; create linkable content, and educational to your patrons. All of these techniques will draw warm leads that have been pre-qualified when they do a Google search for relevant terms or by reading similar content that links to yours.
In addition to blogging, hosting webinars, offering e-books for download, and developing microsites will all attract leads that are interested in your offerings and are eager to engage in a conversation with you about your organization.
By sticking with these Inbound Marketing strategies, you'll continually bring in new leads and grow in authority, however, it won't happen overnight. While Inbound Marketing will save you money, it does take an ample commitment and patience. You won't be the top Google result for desired terms overnight and your first webinar may only have a few people register, but by making a long term commitment to inbound marketing you will see results.
This commitment requires that you create quality content through a “Content Management System”, engage with people through social media, and try new ideas to bring traffic to your site.
Why is Inbound Marketing effective?
In my opinion the following are five key reasons why Inbound Marketing is effective:
It’s targeted. The people that click through to your site have already self-selected themselves as potential customers and are therefore more likely to buy. In marketing terms, you’re reaching “prospects” rather than “suspects”.
It’s permission-based. When people subscribe (RSS, YouTube, Slideshare), follow you (on Twitter) or connect with you (Facebook/LinkedIn), they are opting in to receive your news and content. There’s no issue with spam or privacy, because people can unsubscribe at any time.
It’s viral. The beauty of social networks is that as soon as someone expresses an interest in your content, their friends are invited to do the same. Inbound Marketing is designed to exploit this model.
It’s word of mouth (WOM). Because your content is shared between friends (albeit often passively), it’s effectively a word of mouth recommendation. WOM remains the most powerful form of marketing.
It’s technically “free”. Since most of the online services you need are free, Inbound Marketing does not involve direct costs. It simply requires knowledge, creativity and hard work. But the efforts required is a full time job of someone knowledgeable in this field. Thus it’s not free when you hire a professional to undertake all the necessary measures or an inbound marketing company to provide these services.
If you are a newbie then there are courses to take up or hire a professional or inbound marketing company.
Do you want success with Inbound Marketing? Save your organization in advertising dollars? We'd be excited to discuss your current marketing efforts and how to help you bring in new, qualified leads through Inbound Marketing.
