Inbound marketing is still the ultimate way to convert strangers into repeat customers using content creation. According to Hubspot, 61% of companies say developing on their SEO and organic presence top inbound marketing priority, while 55% specifically cite blogs and content marketing as their top priority (listicles are still the most popular blog format!).
So what’s the big deal about inbound marketing and why is it more important than ever?
Cost-Effective and Time-Saving
If a strategy proves to be quicker, saves you money and gets you the results you want, then you should grab it with both hands. Inbound marketing, such as email marketing, social media, keeping tabs on brand mentions and campaign reporting tends to be more cost-effective and time-saving as most of it can be automated…or at least executed with a number of easy-to-use tools.
Automation doesn’t necessarily mean “impersonal” — it’s more of a way to cut out the administrative labour involved with some of these marketing activities. For example, leads can be streamlined using a lead management platform and social media can be pre-scheduled using services such as Tweet Deck and HootSuite (and Facebook itself!).
Inbound marketing attracts qualified leads (i.e. people who already know what they want), meaning your marketing team can spend less time filtering through poor quality leads and just get on with focusing on converting them to customers.
All Sections of the Buyer’s Journey Can be Targeted
The beauty of content marketing is that there’s a medium for every stage of the customer’s journey. There are generally four stages when it comes to inbound marketing lead conversion: Attract, Convert, Close and Delight. Each stage harbours a list of several content types that tend to go down well with customers:
Attract: Blogs, organic SEO, social media, paid ads (PPC & paid social ads)
Convert: Chatbots, landing pages with forms, calls to action (CTAs)
Close: Email marketing, workflows, lead management, CRM integrations
Delight: Email marketing, surveys, reviews, social media, referral/customer loyalty programs
The examples shown above are not exhaustive — there are several more content marketing mediums to use for each stage. It’s certainly worth sitting down with your marketing team and creating a list for each stage of the journey.
It’s Far More Human and Easier to Personalise
Even though we’ve mentioned automation, inbound marketing is actually a very personalised way to target potential customers. Inbound marketing is all about assisting people who, as we said, already know what they want. The non-digital version of this is a customer approaching a staff member in a shop and asking them if they have a particular item. The staff member’s job is to find out their particular needs and supply them with several solutions to choose from.
Inbounding marketing is effectively super-targeted marketing without being intrusive, yet retaining a tailored and personalised experience for the customer. This, in turn, helps you build up a customer’s trust and, in many cases, brand loyalty. We all know reviews and testimonials are becoming more valuable year-on-year, so brand loyalty greatly increases your chances of a positive review and word-of-mouth marketing.
100% Measurable
Inbound marketing is highly measurable, as it’s so highly targeted, personalised and covers all stages of the customer’s journey. Not only can you measure how your content is performing based on all the usual metrics such as page visitors, time spent on the page, bounce rate and so on, but you can also measure your most effective revenue sources, landing pages and lead communications.
As an example, if you wanted to increase your monthly leads by 25% then inbound marketing could be your answer. It’s easier to set SMART objectives with an inbound marketing strategy, therefore it’s easier to see what’s going well and what needs to be improved. This means you can continually tweak and improve your campaigns as much as you like.
Video Marketing is More Important Than Ever
Unfortunately, not all people read blogs — many would prefer to watch a quick video on how your products and services can solve their day-to-day problems. Video content consumption on Facebook has increased by 57% in the last two years. Make sure your videos have subtitles as a lot of viewers tend to scroll through social media feeds where videos are automatically played with no sound. The trick is to be visual and relatable — after all, 75% of Millennials watch videos daily on social media platforms…and they’re far more likely to use digital financial products and services.
Leadtree Global can help you improve your inbound marketing strategy with our financial services leads management platform!