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If you still don’t know what Inbound Marketing is, you’re missing out on the best marketing opportunity in the digital age ! Just to give you an idea, applying this method can be up to 62% cheaper than other more traditional methods.
In addition, 91% of professionals in the sector already use Inbound Marketing, either separately or in conjunction with other strategies!
Want to know more? Then keep reading!
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing, also called “new Marketing”, is a Digital Marketing methodology that aims to attract the attention of potential customers, gain their permission to interact directly, gain their trust and, then, achieve the sale.
To simplify, remember the opposite of this: more traditional marketing strategies, which often interrupt your target audience’s moments with ads, billboards, messages, unsolicited calls and emails.
In contrast, Inbound Marketing attracts consumers by generating content and other materials that are relevant to them. This way, since first impressions are lasting impressions, the company starts a relationship on the right foot, adding a lot of value to its future customer from the very first moment!
The strategy is to create a “path” for the consumer to follow, from the moment they have their first contact with the company, until they become a loyal customer.
What is the difference between Inbound and Outbound Marketing?
These two strategies present different ways of reaching and engaging your target audience. While inbound marketing focuses on attracting customers in a non-invasive way, outbound marketing takes a more traditional and direct approach.
In other words, in Inbound, the company attracts the attention of customers instead of chasing them, as happens in Outbound.
Thus, in Outbound, the sales team needs to persuade the prospect to insert him/her into the sales funnel. In Inbound, the potential customer “enters” after clearly demonstrating his/her desire.
This does not mean, however, that Outbound is bad. In fact, it is interesting to think about the complementarity of the two strategies to maximize the benefits of each!
What are the basic principles of Inbound Marketing?
Inbound Marketing is a way to attract customers without giving off a “boring” impression. The secret is to create an engaging digital environment with relevant content so that customers seek out the company to meet their needs, and not the other way around.
By doing so, the company builds a relationship with potential customers by offering free and valuable materials — such as e-books, spreadsheets, checklists, surveys, etc. — in exchange for the openness to eventually becoming an actual customer.
And for this to happen, you need to guide your actions based on some principles. Here are some of them:
- Study the persona to understand who the ideal customers are, their needs, challenges and preferences;
- Permission Marketing, which means obtaining the customer’s authorization to communicate with them, respecting their privacy and contact preferences;
- Offer quality content: with interesting information through blog posts, videos, e-books, webinars, among others;
- Generate leads : by capturing information from potential customers through forms, landing pages andpersuasive CTAs;
- Understand the purchasing journey to produce relevant content for each stage, from discovering the problem to the purchasing decision;
- Structure the stages of the sales funnel, creating persuasive offers to move the potential customer forward, from awareness to after-sales.
Learn about the stages of Inbound Marketing
As you have seen, Inbound Marketing is a strategic methodology, which involves steps to attract, convert, sell and retain customers.
Since its goal is to transform a stranger into a consumer who promotes your brand, the method progresses through four stages:
1. Attraction
The first step is to attract. In this context, the consumer is still unknown and must have their attention drawn to the company through valuable content.
2. Conversion
Now it’s time to convert it. This is where the company makes room for the unknown to become a lead, that is, a known contact of a potential customer.
At this stage, the company discovers a way to communicate directly with this person — via email or WhatsApp, for example — and has their permission to use it.
This can happen through newsletter forms, providing free materials in exchange for contact details, event registrations, and so on.
3. Sale
So, the long-awaited moment has arrived: the sale.
And it is done through the communication channel obtained in the previous step. Here, the company needs to contact the lead so that the sale can happen and the lead can become a customer.
4. Enchantment and loyalty
Finally, we have the moment to delight your customer so that they become loyal.
This is where, with good after-sales strategies, the customer is surprised by the brand and becomes a promoter of it, advertising its services and products to acquaintances.
This entire process can be done online, through exclusive articles on corporate blogs, email campaigns and even publications on social networks that create a sense of community.
This is why Inbound Marketing is often confused with Content Marketing. They are different, but both are important parts of the same machine!
Complementary strategies to Inbound Marketing
For Inbound Marketing to reach its maximum potential, you need to put not only the main strategies into practice, but also the complementary ones.
If you still don’t know what they are, I’ll explain each one of them in detail:
What is Content Marketing?
One of the most powerful tools within Inbound Marketing are corporate blogs, that is, blogs created by companies to attract their customers using Content Marketing.
In short, it means creating relevant and valuable content for the customer and directing them to the company’s communication channels and solutions.
However, keep in mind that just creating good content isn’t enough. You need to be found on the Internet, right? That’s where SEO comes in!
Tip: Get to know Content+Performance: Enjoy Minder’s methodology!
What is SEO?
In free translation, SEO means search engine optimization. It basically refers to a series of practices to ensure that your content is well positioned in search engines.
With a good ranking on Google, for example, achieved through optimized content and good SEO practices, your blog will finally be found by your company’s target audience and will start to attract a good number of visitors!
What is Marketing Automation?
Basically, it means using software to automate marketing tasks and processes, such as sending emails, audience segmentation, lead nurturing and data analysis.
Bringing it into the context of Inbound Marketing, automation allows companies to personalize their interactions with leads throughout the purchasing journey, providing a more relevant experience.
In fact, the main automations currently carried out are:
- Sending emails to nurture and build relationships with contacts (82%);
- Qualification of leads and contacts (66%);
- Passing opportunities to the sales team (55%);
- Sending WhatsApp messages (40%);
- SMS sending (14%).
But despite all the opportunities these actions represent, you need to be careful not to automate without a strategy and put all customers in a box, treating them as equals. This can break a relationship that hasn’t even been properly built yet.
So, first get permission, then automate your activities strategically!
What is Email Marketing?
This is a communication strategy that involves sending emails to a list of contacts, with the aim of promoting products, services, content, etc.
Here, Email Marketing contributes to lead nurturing, customer engagement and guiding them through the sales funnel.
This can be done through targeted and personalized email campaigns, so that the company can maintain regular contact with its leads and customers, offering specific content and offers.
In other words, the more assertive you are in targeting, the more relevant it will be and the greater the likelihood that people will want to read what you sent.
This way, with each email opened, you can understand the pain points of each lead and better qualify the profile.
Likewise, the greater the lead’s engagement in emails, the more they will recognize that your company is the best suited to solve their problems!
Essential Tools for Inbound Marketing
To optimize and enhance your Inbound strategies, it is important to use specific tools.
To help you, I have separated the main ones here:
- RD Station: is a complete Marketing automation platform with features such as creating landing pages , sending emails, managing leads, analyzing results and integrating with other tools;
- HubSpot: offers features for automation, CRM management, content creation, data analysis, conversion optimization, and more;
- Google Analytics: uses data analysis to provide important information about website traffic, user behavior, visitor sources, conversions, etc.;
- Semrush: a Digital Marketing platform that has features for keyword analysis, competitor research, website auditing, positioning tracking and organic traffic analysis;
- Mailchimp: facilitates email marketing automation by allowing you to create email campaigns, segment contact lists, track their performance and integrate with other platforms.
How to measure results in Inbound Marketing?
There’s no point putting all this into practice without measuring whether the actions are bringing results, right?
Therefore, it is extremely important to monitor and analyze some performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics that make sense for your business.
See the most important ones:
- Website traffic: represents the number of visitors that access your website, coming from the most diverse channels, such as organic search, social networks, referrals and paid campaigns;
- Conversion rate: is the proportion of visitors who take an action on the website, such as filling out a form, making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter;
- Qualified leads: refers to the number of leads that have a genuine interest in your company’s products or services and have the potential to become customers;
- Closing Rate: Provides the amount of leads that become paying customers after going through the sales process.
Based on the analysis, you can identify areas for improvement, adjust your strategies, and make better decisions to increase your return on investment (ROI) in Inbound Marketing.
Master Inbound Marketing with Enjoy Minder!
Now, do you understand what Inbound Marketing is and how it can make a difference in your strategy? It can certainly bring visibility and engagement to your company, in addition to creating more business opportunities.
And, of course, you can get the best results from this methodology by relying on an agency that specializes in Inbound Marketing.
Enjoy Minder has 17 years of experience and we are ready to help you achieve the best possible results. Talk to an expert!
