No matter what type of business you operate, strong marketing is critical if you want to be successful. Yet, you have to make sure that you’re using the right type of advertising. In traditional outbound marketing, you have banner ads, telemarketing, email, TV and print ads.
Unfortunately consumers are turning away from those forms of advertising. The majority of Americans, over 200 million, have signed up for the FTC’s “Do Not Call” list. Also, the influx of spam email has everyone filtering and unsubscribing. And, the advent of the DVR has shown that over 86% of watchers skip commercials. According to Google Trends the usage of ad-blocking software that blocks banner ads is on the rise.
The shift in consumer behavior away from intrusive ads is leading the charge to inbound marketing. It is imperative that companies take advantage of inbound marketing to maintain and grow their sales.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is giving value to your prospective customers in exchange for their attention. With outbound marketing, the idea is to encourage people to come and give your business a try. With inbound marketing you to attract people with useful information, earn authority and trust, and allow them to discover your products and services.
There are a couple of popular types of inbound marketing. One that is growing more and more every day is social media marketing. With social media marketing, you encourage people to interact with you and your company on social media profiles. You need to create a profile that is strong and interesting and that has something to offer people. Then, they will seek you out on their own, or they will find you through their friends’ profiles. When they first arrive at your page, they won’t just have advertisements thrown at them; instead, you can give them interesting info, pictures or videos to engage them in the conversation.
Another popular type of inbound marketing is content marketing. With content marketing, you don’t focus so much on writing complicated advertisements that are supposed to make people want to frequent your business. Instead, you create blog posts, ebooks, white papers, infographics and videos that will inform them about an interesting topic. The idea is to write articles and other content about something related to your niche; however, this content shouldn’t be written for the sole purpose to sell whatever it is that you have to offer. Instead, the point is to provide people with the information that they have been looking for. Then, they might just appreciate the helpful info that you have had to offer and decide to patronize your business.
Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing
With outbound marketing, it’s generally a one-way “conversation” in which you tell people what you have to offer and hope that they will take the bait. With inbound marketing, however, it is more of a two-way conversation in which both parties are communicating and offering something to one another.
Outbound marketing has been in use via print, email, telephone, radio, banners and more for a very long time. In one way or another, you have probably participated in outbound marketing for your own business. With inbound marketing, however, you will instead focus on bringing in referrals, being found through search engines and social media channels.
With outbound advertising, you really only have one thing to offer: advertising. With inbound marketing, however, there is something for everyone. Even if a customer doesn’t decide to buy your products and services right away, he or she will still walk away with an increased knowledge about your niche or with a good feeling after being entertained.
What are the Benefits?
There are many benefits to switching over to inbound marketing. First of all, it’s more effective. Studies have shown that people just aren’t into outbound marketing anymore. There is a good chance that you’ll lose your audience entirely if you continue to bombard them with advertisements that they don’t want.
Secondly, you should think about all of the money that you’ll be able to save anyway. Although you will obviously have to spend money on pretty much any type of marketing campaign, you can really cut down on your advertising dollars. Social media marketing is very affordable, and even content marketing doesn’t have to be expensive if you make some of the content yourself or if you hire professionals who charge reasonable prices. You can actually gain a lot more while spending a lot less by switching to this type of marketing.
Lastly, your customer base is sure to be pleased with the changes that you’re making if you make the switch to inbound marketing. Instead of looking like a cold company that doesn’t have a lot of personality, you will look more like a modern, proactive company that wants to share and communicate with your target audience.
Making the switch to inbound marketing is critical if you haven’t thought about it already. By setting up a strong content marketing and social media marketing campaign, you can put together an inbound marketing campaign that will help you and your company succeed.
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