Inbound marketing is the process of attracting customers through relevant and helpful content which adds value to them. Online content can be in form of video marketing, social media marketing or blogging.
Blogging is one of the best methods of online content and can be used for all stages of Inbound marketing.
Inbound Marketing and Blog
1. Attract
Your goal is to use a blog post to attract strangers to your website and transform them into your visitor on getting to your website. Your blog post should contain relevant keywords and information that meet their needs and provide insights into helping them achieve their goals. Help and value.
2. Convert
After attracting your website visitors, you convert these visitors into leads using website email forms and chat messaging channels where your prospects can submit their contacts such as email address or phone number. This provides a communication channel to continuously provide relevant information, build rapport, credibility, and trust with your prospects.
3. Sales
This is the stage where you convert the leads into customers by getting them to make a buying decision or to take a profitable action.
This is achieved by using automated email sequences to send your prospects messages in order to build credibility and to identify their problems and goals.
4. Preselling
You can send them specific information about the benefit of your products and how it will solve their problems. This is the preselling. Preselling increases conversion rate and the odds of making sales.
Prospects buy only from marketers they trust thus do not sell your products to a prospect immediately you get their contact. Build rapport first and get to know them.
Lead Generation and Inbound Marketing Strategies
Inbound marketing strategies are designed to help your prospects learn about your product or service when they conduct a keyword search, subscribe to your RSS feed (Real Simple Syndication), download your case studies, opt into your email newsletters, watch your videos, follow you on social media sites or comment on your blog.
In other words, you can help yourself “get found” by prospects who are actively searching for the products and services you offer on the Internet.
Inbound marketing tactics consist of Search Engine Optimization, blogging, social media, website lead generation and lead nurturing. Their focus is to “pull” your prospects toward your business or service so that they can discover you on their own.
If the descriptions and keywords used for your product and services do not rank highly in search engines, then your prospects will likely not find you. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crucial to achieving higher rankings.
One way to maximize your SEO is through frequent blogging. Statistics indicate that B2C companies that blog generate 88% more leads per month than those who don’t. B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those who don’t.
The content generated through blogging is beneficial to prospects, customers and search engines.
Being active on social media sites including Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. are essential for your business. With 93% of US adult Internet users on Facebook, Both B2C and B2B companies are acquiring customers through Facebook and companies that use Twitter average double the number of leads per month than those who don’t.
Once a client or prospect arrives at your website, you should have a means of tracking their visit. Consider incorporating a “call-to-action” (CTA) button that links to an offer.
This CTA button can take your visitor to a “landing page” detailing the offer while providing the visitor with a means to respond thereby creating a lead. It’s up to you to nurture that lead and build relationships and trust with your prospects.
Nurturing can build brand and product preference long before the prospect becomes a customer.
With Inbound marketing including search engine optimization, blogging, social media, website lead generation and lead nurturing, you will increase your sales, grow your business and your brand