What is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound marketing is an approach to marketing and lead generation which involves creating channels which bring the visitor to the business or organisation, rather than the organisation having to actively seek new customers.

What is Inbound Marketing?

A simple comparison would be between blogging (creating content which draws potential leads to the business) and tele-marketing (where individuals actively call out of the business to speak to prospects).

The Basics – What is Inbound Marketing?

There are a few basic elements to inbound marketing, but here at Rippleout we feel that most of them rely on one thing – quality content. If you can get your content right, and share it effectively, you’re half way there.

High quality content is the basis of inbound marketing – it can be recycled in numerous forms, promoted over a range of channels and tailored to suit a range of target audiences. Good content will help your SEO, keep people on your site longer, increase the number of pages they view and, as a result, help you convert more leads.

Once you’ve written a great piece of content (what that is depends on what you’re trying to achieve – but always think about the target audience, what will they find useful or interesting?) you need to promote it. Social media has made this task much easier than it was before, and by its very nature, your inbound marketing strategy will need to be multi-channel to reflect the fact that your prospects may not all be on, say, Twitter. Remember, they’re coming in to your website, but they can’t get here if you don’t provide the route!

Also consider utilising social bookmarking sites, link Digg or Reddit, as well as emailing out your new content to any contacts you have – make sure you only send it to relevant contacts though, or else you might lose a lead through unsubscribing.

Choose The Right Time

You also need to think about when you’re publishing your content – as well as where. For instance, if you’re trying to sell a new range of board markers to primary school teachers (that’s elementary school, for any of you from the US!), it’s unlikely to be as effective promoting your message at 9.25 in the morning, when these teachers are all in the classroom.

Good inbound marketing involves the synchronisation of the right content, in the right place, at the right time.

Of course, when you’ve got people to your site, you need to ensure that your pages make sense, that your site is clean and easily navigable, and that you take people to relevant pages (landing pages) – but that’s food for thought for a whole different blog post!

We welcome comments from all our readers – so please feel free to express your views in the space below.

What is Inbound Marketing?