Attract, convert, close and delight (ACCD) are the four stages of the inbound marketing methodology. Like any theory that hopes to be put into practice, inbound marketing has classified these four stages, as vital elements that must be considered from start to finish within an inbound process. Each one complements the other like a piece of the puzzle and leverages the profitability generated today by the use of web platforms to project a company.
What is the objective of these 4 stages of inbound marketing?
The inbound marketing methodology consists of a series of steps (ACCD) that companies carry out to find buyers via the Internet. There are many platforms that allow you to have a presence on the Internet, such as blogs, social networks, web pages, virtual stores, among others, which are used by organizations to convert visitors to their platforms into sales opportunities.
Making use of the internet and new technologies, The key to the inbound methodology is to act as a user manual that can be adapted to the needs of any business model. In itself, it provides tools to intervene strategically, in each of the stages of the buyer’s journey.
Next, we will define the stages of inbound marketing and what digital tools are involved in each of them. We will explain to you what are the important activities that you must carry out from the first to the last phase of the methodology.
Attract
“Attract” represents the first stage of inbound marketing, because it is the one in which the aim is to capture the attention of buyers on the Internet, to convert them into visitors to a website, social network or blog. In the attraction phase, content is king. You must think about what type of information captures the attention of the target audience and what are the most appropriate formats to disseminate it.
Blogs, social networks and search engines, as the image indicates and as has been stated throughout this article, are important platforms for attracting the ideal audience. Especially because they allow inbound marketing to take place naturally, in the sense that customers come to you voluntarily.
Search engines like Google are key access points, serving as intermediaries between readers and content. People use these web search engines to acquire particular knowledge. Keywords are important to centralize your content into phrases that your prospects could use to search for information.
Keywords facilitate the search process and allow Internet users to access content more directly. For example, if a person wants to search for What are the best travel agencies in Madrid – Spain? The first results that the search engine will give you will be related to the content that it contains as a keyword: travel agencies in Madrid – Spain. Another important piece of information that a good keyword analysis gives us is knowing which are the most common words or phrases used by people to perform a specific search. This will allow us to enrich our content based on these terms and improve our presence in search results (SEO).
Convert
“Converting” constitutes the second phase of inbound marketing and its main objective is to transform these visitors and content readers into sales opportunities or “leads”. That is, bringing them closer to the closing process, which culminates in a successful purchase.
At the conversion stage, data collection is vital. After your potential clients are interested in your content, you must include platforms that allow you to obtain more specific data from them. Forms are an excellent tool to receive information from your visitors. What are their names? How old are they? What are your emails? Try to leave blank boxes where people can respond with their data to these questions.
Why is this extremely important in the conversion stage? When people decide to provide companies with their data, these begin to be considered sales opportunities or “leads.”That is, they go from being just visitors to becoming potential customers.
That people have filled out your forms represents a great indicator that they are interested in learning more about your value propositions and are ready to receive information about your products and/or services.
But how to connect a blog post with a form and, in turn, with a product offer? Call to actions (CTA) are buttons found throughout blog posts or social networks, which, when clicked, direct traffic from these platforms to the purchase or download pages. These pages are called “landing pages” because they represent that final conversion point.
Therefore, Your CTAs should be contextual, clear, concise and stand out throughout your post. They must contain a message that does not exceed eight words and involves a verb in the beginning such as: Download this digital marketing ebook for free.
Close
“Closing” is the penultimate stage of inbound marketing. It is one in which we seek to have a 1:1 relationship with clients to solve and clarify more personal needs. The objective is to transform sales opportunities (leads) into successful purchases (customers).
In the closing stage, customer service is of great importance. In this phase, you need to successfully finalize a purchase, using emails and phone calls to generate a much more direct relationship with potential customers.
You must let people know that they can count on your work team if they need to clarify any questions regarding their purchase. Do prior research on your prospects before communicating directly with them, generating friendly and personalized language.
People should feel confident talking to your team and comfortable with the attention they are receiving. This will ultimately motivate their purchasing decision because it unites the three qualities that you are providing: educational content + good promotions and offers + quality customer service.
Delight
“Delight” is the fourth and final stage of the inbound marketing methodology. It is about turning customers into promoters of the products and services that the company provides. That is why delighting buyers should be a primary task when satisfying their needs.
For companies, attracting new customers costs 6 or 7 times more than maintaining existing customers, in this sense it generates offers, events, meetings and much more personalized material for them. Make them feel special, make them part of your community of followers and establish a long-term relationship with them. Show how important it is for you and your work team that they continue buying and deciding about the future of the company. Give them the power to become promoters of your brand and ultimately consolidate loyal buyers.
The influence of the Internet and social networks on the 4 stages of inbound marketing
Blogs, together with social networks and emails, constitute the main fuel of this new methodology since they allow companies to have the appropriate interaction with their customers. The influence of these web platforms in each of the steps (ACCD) grows day by day.
Statistics reveal how much this growth has been: The global population has 7.4 billion inhabitants. Failing that, 3.17 billion people are Internet users. Of that amount, 2.3 billion users use social networks. Which have 5.54 accounts and/or profiles on average. In this sense, the influence of social networks and, in turn, the internet on today’s communities is enormous.
The inbound marketing methodology, taking these figures into account, builds strategies to identify what content is most attractive to promote through these platforms. The trick is knowing how to make the most of being able to solve buyers’ needs, providing immediate content that directs the buyer to other information proposals of interest.
Each of these stages leverages the use of smartphones, laptops, and tablets as preferred communication tools. And why is it a good time to attract, convert, close and delight? because currently, 4.8 billion people have smartphones, which allows them to more easily access the Internet and the content provided by companies.
It is well known that these platforms impact our daily lives and represent a powerful source of information, both textually and audiovisually. Social networks and blogs represent micro-spaces where we relate and exchange knowledge. The inbound marketing methodology leverages these web tools because it recognizes the power they have to consolidate buyers.
Each of these stages of the inbound marketing methodology involves the use of multiple web tools that can guide buyers to have a much closer relationship with companies. Attracting, converting, closing and delighting make up vital actions to generate buyers in the short and long term.
