Inbound Marketing Strategy
What Is Inbound
Marketing?
Inbound marketing is
a business methodology that attracts customers by creating valuable content and
experiences tailored to them. While outbound marketing interrupts your audience
with content they don’t always want, inbound marketing forms connections they
are looking for and solves problems they already have.
Inbound Marketing Strategies
These strategies will
help you effectively market to your target audience the inbound way. Below,
you’ll see there are specific strategies for each inbound method of attracting,
engaging, and delighting consumers to keep your flywheel spinning and help your business grow better.
Attracting Strategies
Inbound marketing
strategies that attract your
target audience and buyer personas are tied to content creation and
development.
To reach your audience,
start by creating and publishing content — such as blog articles, content offers,
and social media — that provide value. Examples include guides on how to use
your products, information about how your solution can solve their challenges,
customer testimonials, and details about promotions or discounts.
To attract your audience
members on a deeper level through inbound marketing, optimize all of this
content with an SEO strategy. An SEO strategy will require you to target specific keywords
and phrases related to your products or services, the challenges you solve for
customers, and the ways you help target audience members.
This will allow your content and information
to organically appear on the search engine results page (SERP) for the people
who are searching for this information — also known as your target audience or
the right customers for your business.
Engaging Strategies
When using inbound strategies to engage your
audience, ensure you’re communicating and dealing with leads and customers in a
way that makes them want to build long-term relationships with you. When using
these engagement strategies, inject information about the value your business
will provide them with.
Specific engagement
strategies may include how you handle and manage your inbound sales calls. Focus on how customer service representatives handle calls
from interested people and prospects. Additionally, be sure you’re always solution selling rather than product selling. This will ensure all deals
end in mutually beneficial agreements for customers and your business —
meaning, you provide value for your right-fit customers.
Delighting Strategies
Delighting inbound strategies ensure customers
are happy, satisfied, and supported long after they make a purchase. These
strategies involve your team members becoming advisors and experts who assist
customers at any point in time.
Incorporating thoughtful,
well-timed chatbots and surveys to
assist, support, and request feedback from customers is a great way to delight
these people. Bots and surveys should be shared at specific points in time
throughout the customer’s journey to ensure they make sense and are of value.
For example, chatbots may help current
customers set up a new technique or tactic you've started offering that they’d
like to take advantage of. Additionally, a satisfaction survey may be sent out
six months after customers have purchased your product or service to get their
feedback and review ideas for improvement.
Social media listening is another important strategy when it comes to delighting
customers. Social media followers may use one of your profiles to provide
feedback, ask questions, or share their experience with your products or
services. Respond to these interactions with information that helps, supports,
and encourages followers — this shows you hear and care about them.
Lastly, the mark of an inbound strategy
focused on delighting customers is one that assists and supports customers in
any situation, whether or not your business gets any value out of it. Remember,
a delighted customer becomes a brand advocate and promoter, so handle all
interactions, both big and small, with care.