What is the best way to turn strangers into clients and clients into brand ambassadors? Inbound Marketing.
Inbound marketing is the most effective way for a brand to do business online. In the past, companies were very marketer-centric; meaning that their methods of marketing focused on buying advertising space, purchasing email lists and hoping that from there, a lead was formed.
Inbound marketing has reinvented the wheel for the better for both brands and for the customers. Since the buying habits of people have changed drastically due to e-commerce and ZMOT, inbound marketing has become the answer to this buying shift. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that engages with people and draws them to your company or product.
By doing this, brands are naturally attracting inbound traffic that will convert over time. So let’s talk about the Inbound Marketing Methodology.
How Inbound Marketing Attracts Prospects:
Content Creation:
By creating content that answers the basic questions and needs of your customers, you draw them in naturally. Once the content is created, it’s best to share it across multiple outlets. If the content is still timely in a few months, feel free to share it again for those that may have missed it the first time.
Lifecycle Marketing:
Brand ambassadors for your company were once strangers. Through different marketing aspects and engagement, those strangers became customers and eventually brand ambassadors.
It’s Personal:
The content your brand creates can be tailored to the wants and needs of the viewer. As you start to further understand your audience’s buyer persona (what attracts them), you can tailor your content in a more personalized way to meet their needs.
Multi-Channel Exposure:
Inbound marketing can reach someone no matter what channel your audience is on as long as your brand is on it as well. Some common platforms to look into are social media sites. Inbound is multi-channel by nature because where you are reaching them is how you are interacting with them.
It’s Integrating:
How good is your content if you don’t know how many people read it? Inbound marketing covers all aspects from content creation to analytics tools that all work together towards the common goal of getting your content in front of the right people at the right time.
The Four Actions of Inbound Marketing:
Attraction:
When it comes to site traffic, we want the right traffic. The right traffic is known as your “buyer personas.” These are the overarching idea of what your ideal customers are like. Buyer personas encompass goals, pain points, challenges and the common objections to your services. The best tools to attract the right users to your site are blogs, SEO & social media.
Conversion:
Now that you have attracted visitors to your website, the next logical step is converting them into leads by obtaining their contact info (at least their email). For them providing information to you, you have to give them something in return. This gift should be content such as a whitepaper, eBook or an Infographic. The tools you ‘ll need to convert visitors into leads are: forms, calls-to-action (CTA), landing pages & contacts.
Closing:
You’re almost there. Since we now have the right traffic and they’ve converted into leads, it’s now time to make them customers? But how can you effectively do this? The tools you’ll need to help you close are: CRM, closed-loop reporting, email & marketing automation. These can all help you turn your leads into customers.
Delight:
The process doesn’t end just because someone is a customer now. Inbound marketing helps you engage with your customers, delight them and upsell them into brand ambassadors of your products. To do this, be sure to use: surveys, smart calls-to-action, smart text & social monitoring.
Now that we’ve discussed the steps needed, tools used and lifestyle stages that you must got through to turn your visitors into brand ambassadors, it’s time to put the inbound marketing methodology into action.
At Kraus Marketing, we have certified inbound marketing marketers who can help your business attract new leads, covert them and turn them into happy, satisfied clients. To find out more about how Kraus Marketing can help you, contact us here and let’s set up a meeting to discuss a potential relationship. You can also reach us by phone at (973) 998-5742 or online at www.KrausMarketing.com.