Digital marketing is becoming increasingly powerful as a tool for inbound marketing. As a result of the pandemic, all types of businesses have started investing in innovative marketing strategies in an effort to generate more leads. Inbound marketing is the best method to grow any type of business, from small eCommerce stores to large corporations.
However, not all marketing strategies work for all types of businesses. For this reason, this article will examine what inbound marketing is and how it can help your business. By the end of this 5-minute read, you will be able to identify the best inbound marketing strategies for your business.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing begins with growing your online presence and building a strong relationship with your audience. Inbound marketing uses social media, SEO, content marketing, and other tactics to create demand amongst your target market. The methodology is relatively simple when broken down into four phases:
- Attract: The first stage of inbound marketing helps you attract a target audience.
- Convert: Using numerous tactics such as CTA (call-to-action) or sign-up forms, you can use inbound marketing to convert visitors into customers.
- Close: In the close phase, you add other tactics like email marketing to maintain and strengthen your relationship with your customers or attract new ones.
- Delight: In this final phase, show your appreciation to your customers through thank you emails and messages, discounts, etc.
Now that we have analysed inbound marketing methodology, let us look at some of the inbound marketing strategies you should try.
10 Best Inbound Marketing Strategies
The strategies below will help to generate leads, whether your business is a startup or growing company.
1. Google and SEO
Organic traffic is one of the best ways to attract new customers. By organic traffic, we generally mean users that come from keyword searches in search engines like Google. For many businesses, organic search generates the greatest amount of traffic and site visitors that convert into buying customers.
There is no better way to rank in Google than by investing in SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). However, since the Google algorithm changes from time to time, it is essential to understand the principles of SEO and stay up to date on the latest SEO reports.
2. Hire a Marketing Consultant
If you want your marketing strategies to succeed, there is simply no better solution than hiring a marketing consultant. A professional marketing consultant can find and solve all manner of problems in your business. This person will also explore different approaches to growth and create a detailed marketing plan based on your business needs.
This is a fantastic choice for businesses that are not performing as well as they used to or need to modernise their marketing strategies.
3. Invest in LinkedIn
All social media platforms have their place in digital marketing. However, LinkedIn is underrated as a channel for B2B (business to business). In fact, LinkedIn is the most important platform for generating quality leads. Especially in B2B marketing, paid ads are better on LinkedIn than Facebook.
For this reason, you should invest in promoting your profile and business on LinkedIn to increase your presence on the platform.
4. Invest in Marketing Through Instagram
With more than 500 million active daily users, Instagram has become a powerful marketing tool. There are numerous ways to interact with your audience through Instagram. Moreover, the platform is based on visual elements (images, infographics, videos). This makes Instagram even more captivating for users.
Most successful businesses focus on Instagram stories and advertising through visuals like Instagram Reels. You should engage your audience through your Instagram content and keep it short, relevant and informative.
5. Create Captivating Visuals
Visual content is as important as written content. Creating engaging videos, photos, and infographics will help your audience understand and value your products or services.
Luckily, plenty of online platforms like Canva allow you to create top-notch photos and videos, even if you have no graphic design experience.
6. Explore eCommerce and Its Capabilities
The e-commerce market has grown rapidly since 2020 and will continue to do so. For this reason, investing in e-commerce is a smart next step, even for service businesses. In addition to selling physical products, many companies offer webinars, digital consultations via Skype or Zoom, etc.
It becomes clear that eCommerce allows you to explore countless revenue opportunities in your niche and is a brilliant marketing channel to invest in.
7. Email Marketing
Whether you own a new blog, a B2B startup, or anything else, email marketing is a smart way to build a strong relationship with your customers and target market. Even though email marketing is usually underutilised, it’s a marketing strategy used by most successful businesses for communication and engagement.
8. Focus on Conversational Marketing
As mentioned earlier, inbound marketing focuses on engaging and building a relationship with your target audience. Therefore, conversational marketing is precisely what the name implies: a real-time conversation.
This can be achieved through a live chat on your website or through chatbots. Of course, the conversation needs to be personalised and helpful to improve the overall user experience. This strategy is very effective for B2C (business to consumer) companies.
9. Create High-Quality, Valuable Content
Even though visual content is more valuable today than ever before, written content is still the most crucial way to attract customers through search engines. For this reason, every successful marketing strategy relies on high-quality, relevant written content.
From blog posts to forums to interaction on platforms like Quora, your options are endless. In any case, long posts (more than 1000 words) that are SEO-friendly will consistently rank better on Google.
10. Optimise Call To Action
CTAs are crucial to the second step of inbound marketing, converting users. Even though most businesses tend to place CTAs only on the website’s main page, it’s a good idea to place them on all pages and posts. In fact, you should always use at least one call to action in your written (and visual) content.
The Bottom Line
There are numerous other marketing strategies you can use for your business. For example, influencer marketing is a great way to improve user engagement and generate new leads.
The inbound marketing approaches mentioned will help you develop an effective marketing strategy. Understanding terms like SEO are crucial. Hiring a marketing consultant is a great way to ensure a successful marketing strategy.
Invest in some of the tips above to improve your business’s online presence and, ultimately, its marketing impact.