Throughout time, particularly with the immense technology development, business holders have changed their traditional marketing tactics. What used to be TV advertising, e-mail subscribing or phone marketing, is now online marketing with the purpose of creating quality content that naturally attracts people to your company or product. That way, inbound refers to the creation of content and sharing it with the world. By creating relevant and wise, inbound attracts people to your business, and even makes them coming back for more, converting them into your lasting customers. Overall, it is about creating something that your customers will love, thus creating customers from strangers that will later on develop into your business promoters. To be successful, inbound companies or individuals must take four actions: attract, convert, close, delight.
Inbound marketing steps:
1. Attract. Think about your target group. Who do you want to attract and why them? Make your customers your buyer personas, that encompass the goals and challenges, as well as personal information shared between them. This, attracting is about making yourself visible and worthy. Blogging, social media marketing, company websites, SEO are some of the most important tools to get the right customers.
2. Convert. Having previously attracted your customers, converting them into leads is the next step. This is done by gathering their contact information that they would want to give willingly. To do so, you provide them with information interesting for them. Once you get their attention, you need a simple form they would fill in, calls-to-action, webpages that the previous calls-to-action lead, and finally maintenance of all that incoming information.
3. Close. Until now, you’ve turned your visitors into leads. Now, it’s time to convert them into customers. Some certain specific tools proven to be successful include CRM, e-mail and marketing automation. Customer Relationship Management is about managing the contact information thus obtaining the right information they want to have. E-mails are mainly used for the visitors who have become leads but it takes time to attract them and convert them into customers. Show them you care about them, contact them and make them ready to buy. And marketing automation is about making interested candidates even more interested, by sending them more content of their interest or leading them into different interests.
4. Delight. This is the final step where you make your customers your promoters. Don’t forget your existing customers in your search for others. Delight them and give them a good reason to buy again. This is mainly done by reflecting their experience and needs. Make a survey, and get them thinking about what they want, present them with a tailored content just for them, do social monitoring and answer their questions, clear their doubts and keep contact with them.
Thus, inbound marketing empowers visitors to become not only customers, but promoters of your business. It is not a particular tool or action, it is a long-lasting and never-ending process that happens with experience. It is about content and context. By having the right content published at the right place and time, marketing will become something your visitors will love and look for more.
