Inbound marketing is introducing your consumers and prospects to your business’s way of thinking and culture by influencing them with compelling content. Unlike traditional marketing, it is not one-way communication but does go back to have better engagement. Today’s consumer is no longer dependent on advertisements to make buying decisions as Google searches and relevant blogs on the web help them with much more than just product information. With inbound marketing, it is the customers that come attracted to the website rather than marketers chasing them with generalised and commercial content.
What Is Inbound Marketing?
According to HubSpot, “Inbound marketing is about delivering solutions and opportunities that have a positive impact on people and your business.” And how does one do that? Let us further explore the compelling reasons why your business needs inbound marketing to increase traffic, generate higher leads, retain customers, and grow in the long run.
1. Generate Leads With Inbound Methodologies
What is the first thing you do before deciding the perfect holiday destination? What is it that drives your decision? Just like most people, you conduct a Google search and read through relevant blogs before making a decision, yes? As per SEO statistics 2019, businesses that show up on the first page of search results get about 92% of consumer traffic. Inbound marketing focuses on crafting relevant content that drives prospects and customers to your website than you chasing them with outright promotional ads.
With inbound marketing, even the placement of ads is done by keeping in mind the type of content it appears with. By using SEO and Google AdWords to its merit, inbound marketing can do wonders in terms of generating colossal traffic for your website.
2. Inbound Marketing Helps You Enhance Your Content Marketing Efforts
In taking a faster route for your prospects towards the bottom of the marketing funnel, content plays a key role. Moreover, more than half the web traffic is driven by organic search results and content is THE reason why. This highlights the importance of content when it comes to engaging with prospects and customers. Inbound marketing lets you do that. Putting a heavy emphasis on content marketing, inbound marketing lets your content appear in the top results. After all, while looking for the perfect product or service, aren’t you more likely to click on organic top results than promotional content?
3. Inbound Marketing Is Less Expensive Than Traditional Marketing Methods
This is a no brainer! According to a report by Hubspot, “The average cost per lead for outbound-dominated businesses was $346. In comparison, the average cost per lead for businesses leveraging primarily inbound techniques was $135.” So, not only does an inbound marketing strategy costs you less money and time, but it also generates you more leads. Outbound marketing strategies are significantly more expensive and also take much longer to get you the results you are looking for.
4. Inbound Marketing Helps You Personalise Better
According to 2019 customer engagement and loyalty stats, “63% of consumers expect personalisation as a standard of service and believe they are recognised as an individual when sent special offers.” Inbound marketing includes robust elements such as email marketing, website content, social media marketing, and content marketing, which are used to create personalised messaging for customers based on their preferences and different buyer personas. Inbound marketing is one such tactic that helps you keep customers as your primary focus, along with retaining the previous ones. It also has a great impact on the return on investment.
According to 2019 customer engagement and loyalty stats, “93% of businesses with advanced personalisation strategies increased their revenue last year.”
5. Boost Returns on Your Marketing Efforts
With inbound marketing, your returns on investment are far more traceable than that with outbound. Look at it this way, if it is a billboard or radio ad, the impressions created with the same are very difficult to measure. At the same time, when it comes to email content, website, or social media marketing, it is far easier to track the numbers of every possible metric you can come up with. According to HubSpot, “Customers spend 50% of their time online engaging with custom content which indicates the opportunities out there for your business.”
Not only that, according to the 2015 State of Inbound Marketing Report, “Compared to outbound marketing, inbound marketing generates 51% more leads.” Apart from generating qualified leads, you quickly get to know whether your inbound tactics are working or not. And if not, you can just as quickly change the course of your strategy by making relevant changes for getting that ROI on your efforts.
6. Your Competitors are Already Using Inbound
According to the HubSpot report, “84% of small businesses are using inbound marketing!” So, if you are in the remaining 16%, you are already behind your competitors and losing out on hefty revenues. And as per Moz, even industry giants such as Google, Salesforce, etc are already using inbound strategies. Even if these are not your direct competitors, these are definitely the benchmark-setters for different industries to look at and learn from.
Quick Refresher
If the world is going inbound, why are you behind? You can easily boost your website traffic with a stellar inbound marketing strategy, engage the right prospects with relevant content, nurture long term relationships with ultra personalisation, and get heavy returns on your marketing efforts. Use the new age inbound marketing services to influence, engage, delight, and retain your customers and boost your revenues.
