Online marketing continues to get more and more competitive. No longer do salesman have to flip through the phone book and make cold calls to random clients. Now marketing is exponentially more focused and sophisticated. Still the old outbound marketing techniques of mass email and banner ads are failing. New techniques of inbound marketing are now the most successful. There are a number of inbound marketing tips that companies can use to get an advantage. Using these techniques, companies can gather more valuable leads and more conversions to sales.
First, a brief overview of inbound marketing
Inbound marketing is a method to attract people to your site, service or product without contacting them by outbound methods. Those outbound methods include traditional TV ads, the radio, print ads, phone calls or mass email. Instead, outbound marketing is based on creating quality content and search engine optimization. Podcasts, videos, eBooks, blogs and social media are especially well-known forms of valuable content.
By focusing on creating unique content that is relevant to the consumer, you can attract people in to your product without ever having your sales people make a wasteful cold-call. For example, if you are subscription make-up boxes (such as BirchBox), you can host a weekly podcast on the hottest products and trends to watch. You can publish this material on your website, partner sites as well as popular podcast portals such as SoundCloud, Sticher and iTunes.
Social media as a medium for inbound marketing outreach
Social media is also becoming a hot way to create inbound marketing. All consumer facing brands should consider creating a Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram account. Younger consumers are especially likely to get a lot of influence from these sites. Try to post frequently to these sites so that you will naturally build a large, organic audience that enjoys your product. Maybe have funny videos or information about things relevant to your product. For example, if you are selling health insurance you may create listicles of ways to use ObamaCare to your advantage. You might even create funny videos of people using the hospital system after some hilarious injury and getting covered thanks to their cheap health insurance. Vine, Snapchat and Instagram are gaining a lot of steam with these types of content. (Read more about social media trends in a complimentary blog post.)
eBooks can make great content offers for your visitors
eBooks are also a valuable resource for inbound marketing. However, as they are a much more in-depth content source, it is fair to ask the consumer for their contact information directly before they download the book. For example, if you are an architecture firm and create an eBook on green building materials, you know that industry professionals will be the primary consumers of that eBook. Before they download the book, simply ask them to fill out their name, email, phone number and company so that you can follow-up with a soft pitch. Based on the valuable information you already provided for free, they will be more likely to listen to your pitch.
Blogging cements your standing as a source of information
Keeping a regular blog is of course another well-known inbound marketing source. Again, focused industry related content is good. Place company contact information prominently throughout the site and end each blog post with a short pitch about things that you are working on that are related to the blog content. If the reader has the need, they will surely reach out to you.
We love the inbound marketing approach at Relish Studio and have helped many clients perfect their inbound marketing strategies and hit their financial goals. As the industry becomes more competitive, expertise and drawing the right clients is more and more important. For more information, you can read our Inbound Marketing 101 blog series or reach out and get in touch with us.. We’ll be happy to help explain our process and how we can structure a program specifically for your needs.
