Inbound Marketing Scenario:
How do you decide which movie to watch? Most likely, you will search for “upcoming movies” and click on a trailer after reading a summary. There is a reason why studios spend the big bucks on cutting the best trailer, flooding the Internet with relevant blogs and articles, and then sending their stars on a promotion tour to engage with the potential audience. What studios are doing is creating a valuable experience and a reason to “pull” you to the movies, and that is a classic example of inbound marketing. Inbound marketing grows a business by building brand awareness, establishing trust, and delivering value. It is the smarter way to earn a customer’s attention by delivering exactly what they need at the precise point they seek it.
Types of Inbound Marketing
In contrast to outbound marketing, inbound marketing utilises a combination of content marketing, PPC, SEO, long tail keywords, blogs, emails, and live events or webinars to attract and engage customers at their point of need 24/7. Advance your content creation by curating videos, podcasts, whitepapers, ebooks, and tip-sheets based on buyer analysis and touch points. Use effective keyword analysis, backlinks, and PPC to launch your company to the top of search results. Guest blog or partner with influencers to boost your brand voice and ensure your content is being discovered by the right audience.
The key is to develop and commit to an inbound marketing strategy that combines these complementary techniques to instantly grow your total returns.
Next read: Here are 8 SEO hacks you need today to improve your site’s Google rankings.
Why Use Inbound Marketing At All
Inbound marketing campaigns are proven to achieve higher ROI than outbound techniques regardless of company size, industry, geography, or budget. According to Hubspot’s 2018 State of Inbound Report, companies are seeing higher ROI as a result of their inbound marketing strategies. The internet has changed how customers seek information. The traditional methods of sending blast print material, attending trade shows, and cold calls are not as effective. Buyers today are doing a lot more their research online and reaching out to those businesses that satisfy their needs. They are also expecting a lot more personalised experience through the journey. Studies show that properly executed inbound marketing solutions are 10 times more effective than outbound marketing for lead conversions.
Why Use Inbound in Sales
It is easy to think that inbound marketing is all about pulling customers to a website and converting them to leads. But that is just the beginning of the process, the ultimate goal is to actually increase sales! Inbound marketing solutions apply to sales as well. Salespeople can personalise their communication and deliver value or a proposition with the help of clear buyer personas via inbound marketing. The marketing content also provides more options for prospect follow-ups. Sales teams can also benefit from the analytics and data generated by inbound marketing and use numbers to drive decisions and next steps. Infuse inbound marketing to sales by using tightly aligned service level agreements, and position yourself to convert as soon as a prospect is sales-ready!
How to Use Inbound Marketing in a B2B scenario
According to the HubSpot Inbound Report, 2017, 77% of B2B buyers prefer to conduct their own research before speaking to a salesperson.
Today’s customers are exposed to more information than ever and this is causing a shift in behaviour. And B2B companies have to adjust to this shift. But how?
Here are some proven B2B inbound marketing solutions that help companies build long-term relationships with clients.
1. Prioritise customer needs and personalisation over promotional messaging while creating smart content. Design and test your website’s CTAs/forms and consistently update blogs to drive organic growth because, in the end, your website is your company’s 24/7 sales agent.
2. Automate your marketing by using a platform like Salesforce, Marketo or Hubspot to enable you to generate and prioritise lead, and nurture individual and key account buyer journeys. Automating your marketing will also allow creating workflows which will move leads through the typically longer sales funnel, and ensure no lead falls through the cracks.
3. Work with inbound marketing consultants to understand which pay per click (PPC) platforms can be tapped for lead generation. There is a wide range of PPC lead generation options outside of Google Adwords and Display Network such as trade media display ads and social media advertising.
Next read: 10 powerful inbound marketing strategies you need in 2019.
Inbound Marketing Strategy for a Growing Business
Today’s customer is dynamic and constantly changing. It’s essential to make sure you are implementing the best inbound marketing solutions to achieve unprecedented growth and success. You have to earn your customer’s attention - immediately. As per the Content Marketing Institute, content marketing gets 3 times more leads than paid advertising (wow!). Set up the right buyer personas and create value based advance content like videos, podcasts, ebooks and how-to guides that will attract customers in like a magnet.
It is equally important to align the content strategy with the sales funnel and the entire buyer journey. Apart from creating intelligent content, further promote it on industry forums, applicable social media channels, and via influencers. These are also great for building backlinks as well! Grow your business faster by optimising on-page SEO by keeping short page titles and highlighting the same keywords in headings, subheadings, and meta descriptions. But, do be careful of keyword stuffing!
Including videos on landing pages will increase conversions by 86% and is 50% more likely to drive organic search results.
For growing organisations, the alignment between sales and marketing teams is crucial. Both teams have to collaborate on every aspect of a customer’s journey to deliver noteworthy results.
Grow With Transfunnel’s Inbound Services
Seeking to upgrade your inbound marketing plan or know how it applies in a B2B setting? Unsure how marketing automation can help your inbound strategy? Look no further!
Transfunnel Consulting is one of the industry leaders in providing the latest marketing automation and inbound marketing solutions to businesses across the globe. From providing expert guidance on content creation to optimising your website’s SEO, Transfunnel Consulting has the best inbound marketing consultants that are abreast of the changing marketing trends and technology.
Customers start forming brand impressions early on, partner with Transfunnel’s inbound marketing services to devise a compelling strategy that sets a positive impression from the first lead itself.
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