Within the last several years, inbound marketing has transformed the way businesses attract and gain customers. In the past, small businesses attempting to reach prospective customers relied mostly on traditional methods such as placing ads, running television commercials, and cold calling. This is referred to as outbound marketing because the efforts of the business extend outward to the customer. The small business is the one initiating contact with the prospect. Inbound marketing, however, is the reverse of outbound marketing.
It involves businesses attracting customers to the company website by posting relevant content. The way it works is businesses develop their digital presence through various methods, people find them when searching for information relating to their industry, and a new prospect is found. Inbound marketing has the potential to be more productive and it can be less expensive. Here are three best inbound marketing practices.
Determine Your Buyer Personas
The first step in developing an inbound marketing plan is to create your buyer personas. This is a detailed description of what your typical buyers are like or what you want them to be like. You can find this information out by surveying customers or looking at any data you have on past customers or the type of customers you're looking for. You want to gain as much information as possible about the different types of people who buy your product or service or might want to buy your product or service. For example, one buyer persona may be a man in his 40's in a managerial position. He works for an automotive supply warehouse. It's important to also define the buyer persona's pain points and what motivates him or her. The more information you have about your buyer persona, the better content you can create.
Post According To The Buyer's Journey
The buyer's journey refers to where the prospective buyer is along the journey between researching and purchasing. The three main stages are awareness, consideration, and decision. You want to have relevant content for each stage of the journey. In addition, your content may take a different format for each stage as well. Each stage lends itself to certain types of content. For example, when buyers are in the awareness stage, they are primarily looking for information. So educational blogs about their issue is appropriate. However, once they reach the decision stage, they don't need educational information anymore. Now, they may simply need a trial, sample, or discount offer to lead them to finalize the purchase.
Post Regularly
One of the main ways to boost your ranking with Google is to have regular activity on your site. By publishing new content on a regular basis, you will keep your website active. When Google sees your website has movement, it may give you a higher ranking. This means when a person “Googles” a topic relating to your business, you may rank higher than you would if you didn't have regular activity on your website. According to a Forbes article, updating your site frequently is one of the four best ways to “boost your website's Google ranking.”
Learning the inbound marketing methodology will help drive traffic to your small business. As a result, you will soon have visitors turn into leads you can turn over to your sales department. There's no need to randomly cold call people who may not have any interest in your business. With inbound marketing techniques, you discover the people who have a need for your product or service and have expressed an interest. A strong marketing plan may lead to hundreds of visitors a day.
Are you ready for more tips and ideas for your inbound marketing plan? Take your small business to the next level by implementing an inbound marketing strategy. Connect with The Friedman Group today for more information!
