How did you do on the Inbound Marketing Quiz.1: Do You Think Like an Inbound Marketer?
Don't worry if you didn't get all the answers right. The point of the quiz is for you to see that inbound marketing, with its various components, works extremely well in helping business owners to create more sales-ready prospects. Since you probably went through the quiz rather quickly, I though you might like to go over the information at a more leisurely pace.
What is inbound marketing?
This question is at the very heart of using the internet for marketing purposes. Outbound marketing is essentially based on grabbing your attention thru some or other disruption. Think about how you record you favorite TV shows just so you can skip through the annoying commercials.
Inbound marketing or permission based marketing, on the other hand, is based on providing people with the information they are searching for. And, did you know the Google serves 5.9 billion searches every day! The important point here is to realize people are already searching, all you have to do is provide them with the valuable information they are searching for.
We frequently refer to it as serving the right information to the right audience at the right moment - in other words, they find the information when they have a need for it. Therefore Inbound marketing is very successful at attracting the right type of clients for you. Now people can decide to follow you or contract with you without any hard-sales pressure. A person can decide to look at your blog, can decide to download a guide and decide to get to know your business better, all while staying in the comfort of their own digital device.
Are people using the internet to choose a business to work with?
Studies have determined that on average 87% of people today use a search engine and 78% use it to do searches for products and services. And, the majority of those searches are now done on mobile devices. So, as a smart business marketer you want to be where the action is, you want to make sure people find your valuable information when they search for your type of services or products.
On another note, since most people use search engines, it just makes sense to ensure that all your content and website is search engine optimized. Inbound marketers understand SEO and know how to apply SEO principles. One of those principles is learning the keywords/keyword phrases people use to search for specific information. Do you know the keywords/keyword phrases your target market is using?
Is a blog really necessary?
The answer to that question is a resounding "YES." While having an optimized website is where you start, most likely your customers will find one of your blog articles first. And they seek the most current ones that they can.
Here are those statistics again:
- 43% of marketers said they have generated at least one customer from their blog
- 57% of marketers who were committed to blogging monthly could trace customers back to their blogs
- A wopping 82% of marketers who blog daily said that they generated customers from their blogs. Blogging is the cornerstone of inbound marketing.
Can you have too few or too many landing pages?
When you publish a blog and it contains very valuable information, our results prove that people will exchange their contact information with you in order to obtain that information. The page to exchange information is what we refer to as landing pages.
As a ferocious writer and thought leader you may publish several pieces of information that people would love to download, thus be prepared to exchange their information with you. Needless to say, the more valuable pieces of information you have, the more landing pages you have to capture their contact information. And, their contact information is what you use to educate them further on what you do and how you can help them to solve their problems or capitalize on an opportunity...
Having several landing pages for the various stages of the sales funnel, top to middle to bottom, allow you to serve prospects the specific information they are looking for.
Have you ever made an online purchase from an email?
65% of consumers say that they have made an online purchase as a result of an inbound marketing email campaign. This campaign is an important component of inbound marketing and its main focus is to educate your prospect further about what you do.
Landing pages also help to segment prospects into different target markets based on their responses to the questions you had on the landing pages. This allows you to email different target markets information pertaining to their specific circumstances, needs, wants, problems or opportunities.
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When you are ready to learn more about inbound marketing we would love to sit down with you for a Complimentary Inbound Marketing Session. During this session we will help you to "dig" into your goals and identify what is stopping you from achieving your goals. With that out of the way we'll discuss inbound marketing and how you can use it to grow your business. Click the big obnoxious orange button below for your complimentary inbound marketing strategy session...
Jaco Grobbelaar is the owner and CMO 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 or707.766.9778 or connect with Jaco on Facebook -www.facebook.com/broadvisionmarketing - and LinkedIn -www.linkedin.com/in/JacoGrobbelaar.