Is Inbound Marketing a good strategy for marketing on the web? Judging by all the online conversations about inbound marketing and multiple case studies it seems the answer is a resounding YES! So then, what is inbound marketing and second, what are some of its key ingredients?
What is Inbound Marketing? The term inbound marketing was coined by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan and Wikipedia defines it as follows: “Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects,[1] making yourself easy to be found[2] and drawing customers to your website[3] by producing content customers value.[4] Blogs, podcasts, video,eBooks, enewsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing are considered inbound marketing.”
Key Alphabet Soup Ingredients for Inbound Marketing
What if I told you that the key ingredients for a great inbound marketing strategy, or marketing on the web, were concepts that you are already familiar with? Following are five key ingredients that we believe are cornerstones for an inbound marketing strategy. We’ve listed them alphabetically to help you remember: (and please add your favorites if they are not not on our list)
A is for Authority
Who do you consider as an authority on searching on the internet? Google is a clear number one. Or, where do you get your news? Lots of people go to CNN. What about information related to social media? Social Media Examiner immediately comes to mind. You most probably go to these organizations because they have done an excellent job of giving you very valuable content when you were searching for it. In other words, you have learned to trust them since they have proved themselves to be the best in their respective fields, they are the experts, the authorities.
We want to be the go-to-people for clients in our business. We want people to be attracted to our website, blogs , presentations, and our products and services.
Are you an expert in what you do? If so, you need to start thinking of yourself as an expert and then start acting like one. Take pride in your work; strive to be accurate and relevant. Join in conversations and add some of your expert information with others, whether on your blog, your LinkedIn groups or other professional arenas.
B is for Benefit
Now that we have talked about how you are the authority, let’s turn our attention to your clients. Inbound marketing strategy B refers to how you can benefit [http://www.broadvisionmarketing.com/2012/05/creating-a-powerful-marketing-message-4th-step-in-marketing-ball-2/#more-3919 ] your clients. What can you do to help them? Remember that clients need to know what is in this product or service that will help them. You need to have information, blogs, webinars and such to make your product helpful. If you stop worrying so much about SEO, inbound links and calls-to-action and concentrate on your living, breathing clients, the rest will fall in to place naturally. Deliver real value and the search engines will find you.
C is for Consistency
Looking for the ultimate strategy of inbound marketing? It is that you are not going to be successful in an instant or even overnight. It is going to take your consistent, sustained effort over a long period of time to build authority and reach your market. Just like you can’t build that house overnight, you cannot succeed at business building without doing the work. Your final piece of the inbound strategy alphabet is that you must include in your strategy consistent work daily. To reach your goals you must do what the other authorities have done and work every day, striving to be the best at every task you do. When you do this, you will see a steady increase in traffic, sales and brand awareness.
D is for Discipline
Tied to consistency, rigorous discipline must be applied to an inbound marketing strategy to make it successful. I recommend creating an editorial/blogging schedule. Make deadlines and stick to them. Unless you make it a top priority and apply discipline, there is a high likelihood that you will get distracted by something shinier and prettier that shows up down the road.
E is for Engagement
Visitors and prospects value content that is engaging. When your content captures the attention and interest of visitors to your website they’ll not only stay on that page, they may even visit other pages on your site or start a conversation with you by commenting on your blogs. Look at your site’s Google Analytics and see how long visitors stay on your site and how many pages they visit on average. Then identify the most popular pages and analyze these pages’ content. Do they stay because your content is educational, entertaining, or is it the free downloadable whitepapers that bring them back time after time. And, when a visitor returns it may not be long before they become a prospect or customer.
This has been such fun that I think I will add some more letters in another blog. What do you suggest we add to our key alphabet soup inbound marketing ingredients ?
For more information:
- Business Blogging—What Does It Really Cost? BroadVision Marketing Blog
- Fishing for Clients; BroadVision Marketing Blog
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner of BroadVision Marketing. BroadVision Marketing works with business owners to put in place inbound and outbound marketing strategies that consistently secure new clients. The BroadVision Marketing Training Center is located in Petaluma, CA and primarily serves companies in the San Francisco Bay area.
Jaco can be reached at jaco@broadvisionmarketing.com or 707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook - www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn - www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.