Inbound marketing for any type of business

Inbound methodology is the best way to turn strangers into customers and promoters of your company.

In this article we review what Inbound is, what are the stages of the methodology and how to implement it in your company.

What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing is a strategy based on attracting customers with useful content, relevant and adding value at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

With inbound marketing, potential customers find your company through different channels such as blogs, search engines and social networks.

What is the difference between Inbound Marketing and Traditional Marketing?

As opposed to traditional marketing, inbound does not need to strive to attract the attention of potential customers, because by creating content designed to address the problems and needs of your ideal customers, you will attract qualified prospects and generate trust and credibility for your company.

The world has changed considerably – people no longer live, work, shop, or consume the way they did a decade or two ago. However, companies still aim to market and sell as they did in 1999. People have changed their way of communicating and interacting in a radical way.

People are ignoring traditional marketing practices such as phone calls or TV ads.

Traditional marketing has gone bust

This is where it is relevant to find new strategies such as Inbound Marketing. Inbound Marketing is a more effective way to attract, involve and please customers.

It’s about delivering value in a non-intrusive way, unlike traditional advertising, so consumers don’t feel that the goal is to make sales. With inbound techniques, your customers come to you and with outbound you are the one who must find them. In the first case, the key is to create quality content, and in the second, in the budget.

What are the stages of the Inbound methodology?
Attract.

• Convert.
• Close sales.
• Retain customers

1) Attract:

To generate traffic, you must use different resources such as content marketing, SEO techniques, social networks, PPC, etc.. It is important that you do it according to a strategic planning to achieve results.

The idea is not that all users visit your website, but that we focus on attracting those who are most likely to become sales opportunities and ultimately satisfied customers. How to do it? To get the attention of the right customers, you have to offer them relevant content at the right time (i.e. when they are looking for that content).

2) Convert:

Once you have succeeded in attracting visitors to your website, the next step is to turn them into sales opportunities. To do this, you must start a conversation in the way that best suits them; e.g., through messages, forms or meetings. When you are already in contact with your visitors, you should answer all their questions and offer them content that is relevant and valuable to each of your people buyers, and continue that communication.

3) Close:

Once you have your database, you must manage the records, integrate them with a CRM or with automation tools and lead nurturing. In this way, an automated content flow is created and adapted to the user’s purchase cycle; related to the lead scoring, which determines the right time to become a customer.

4) Retain 

Once you’ve got customers, you need to keep them. In this phase, you must keep them satisfied, offer them useful and interesting information and take care of your potential prescribers to turn sales into recommendations.

Finally, you must bear in mind that, in order to achieve sales through inbound marketing, coordination is very important, so everything must be perfectly integrated.