How Inbound Marketing Beats The Whipped Cream On Your Latte

Inbound marketing involves distributing and coming up with content that benefits your target audience. The goal is to increase your readership and improve your sales and site traffic. Inbound marketing has to appeal to your visitors because you want to convert them from prospects to customers.

Since 2006, inbound marketing has been thought of as one of the most profitable online marketing tools. Where outbound marketing may use methods such as trade shows, print advertising or television commercials, inbound marketing is what experts call “permission-based marketing.” This is where you engage and interact with customers. Furthermore, inbound marketing makes use of content marketing, search marketing, social media, email marketing and video production.

In essence, you are meeting potential clients on their turf and giving them information. You are attempting to convince them to give you some of their time. However, the client doesn’t consider it time because, if you do it well, they enjoy it. In order to fully implement inbound marketing techniques, it helps to have a comprehensive understanding of its benefits.

Develop Credibility

When people use Google to locate answers to their questions, they place a lot more relevance to sites featured on the first page. The reason is because Google is conveying that these are the sites worth trusting. When your site lists on the third or fourth page, or beyond, it has a much lower likelihood of getting viewed. Additionally, consumers will not attach credibility to your site either. Significantly, a recent study found 92% of people only clicked on website results from the first page of Google. One way to increase your trustworthiness is through the use of consistent inbound marketing. With this method, Google starts to recognize your site and push it up the search engine rankings.

Brand Promotion

Your brand is everything to your product or service. When consumers look up reviews or ask friends and associates for buying advice, they are usually discussing brands. You want your brand at the top of mind with your users. When they have your brand in their heads, you can be assured they are talking about you. If your site repeatedly shows up at the top pages of search engine results it means you are augmenting your brand’s awareness.

Help Interaction

The point of inbound marketing is to give your users a platform to offer their ideas, feedback or suggestions. Consumers are weary of feeling controlled by marketing. They shun tactics that appear too aggressive. They ignore ads from companies they have never heard of. On the contrary, inbound marketing makes them feel like the center of attention. You place a point of view on one of your platforms and request interaction. This is the first step to drawing them in. Instead of making them feel like pawns, you give your users a sense of ownership and empowerment.

Steady Traffic Stream

When your clients realize that you have helpful, thoughtful and engaging inbound marketing, they are more likely to visit your site more often. As they spend more time online, they will search for companies that give them the information they want. If your company isn’t doing so, they will look elsewhere. For instance, they can tell if you use inbound marketing just to create traffic and nothing more. On the other hand, if your resources are valuable and challenging, users will come back and bring friends.

Cultivate Your Value

Say you sell coffee. If someone comes to your site, they may find hundreds of varieties of coffee from all parts of the globe. That would be good to have such a large product mix. However, how would a consumer know how to tell them apart? Moreover, how can they distinguish you from another coffee seller who appears to have more expertise? With inbound marketing, you can curate pieces of information to help you stand apart.

More than just selling coffee, consumers might want to know where to find the best grounds. For that illustration, you may write a blog post answering their question. Another inquiry consumers might have is figuring out the best coffees to serve with chocolate or the best to serve for breakfast. So, you can also create informational resources to help give them a better education. Now, they view you are more than a coffee distributor. They want to purchase your product because they find value in your data.

Makes You Feel More Human

The online marketplace has been a boon for business owners and consumers alike. At the same time, it has taken away some of the personality and in-person service that comes along with shopping at a brick-and-mortar store. While many physical retail locations have gone out of business because they did not have a successful online strategy, there are still many companies that will continue to house physical locations.

To illustrate, when you walk into a Starbucks, you smell sweet and inviting scents. The baristas are friendly, the environment is cozy and you have a wide selection of tempting treats and snacks. Furthermore, they offer additional perks such as free Wi-Fi. Also, if the weather is nice, it is a good place to enjoy a drink on the patio and meet friends. All of those items cannot be offered through a strictly online experience.

So, with inbound marketing, you give more personality and warmth to what might feel like a cold and robotic-feeling site. Even if consumers enjoy the convenience provided through online browsing and shopping, they are still emotional beings. They want to meet the wizard behind Oz. They want to see your nature come through your content. This gives them the feeling that they may share something in common or that you understand their needs. As a result, you are not just a robot without individuality.

Inbound marketing is used to draw clients places where they want to be, naturally. First they are strangers, then hopefully; they become visitors, leads, customers and promoters. By distributing your content to the world, you epitomize the phrase “sharing is caring.”

Furthermore, consumers are not as intimidated by inbound marketing as they are by outbound marketing. They can ignore an ad, but they might not want to ignore your illuminating article. So, go forth and escalate your inbound marketing strategies. Have you thought about how you plan to do so?

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