What is “Inbound Marketing” Anyway?

As a business owner or manager, you’ve undoubtedly heard the term “inbound marketing.” And you can be excused if you don’t know exactly what it is referring to, as it is just part of the jargon describing “online marketing,” which is also referred to as “content marketing and “Internet marketing.” While all of these terms refer to similar marketing strategies, “inbound marketing” specifically refers to the strategy of using the Internet and social media to get the customer to organically come to you.

Thus, the “inbound,” which is distinctly different than the traditional outbound marketing that relies on targeting masses of people with various messaging schemes (advertising, telemarketing, direct mail, spam, etc.) in the hopes that the message might resonate and garner a response (sale). Through inbound marketing, you use relevant content on the web to attract customers, and, once attracted, work on establishing a relationship with them that ultimately leads to sales conversions. If properly engaged, and satisfied with the experience, that new customer usually generates leads to new customers.

Benefits of Inbound Marketing

Despite the obvious successes that can be achieved by inbound marketing, some companies remain reluctant to adopt the approach. Whether because of an entrenched sales team, fear of the unknown, or company management stasis, companies that resist inbound marketing are missing out on the following benefits:

• Less expensive than outbound marketing.
• Unlike outbound marketing messaging, which is received like background noise by more than 80 percent of Americans, inbound messaging is far more likely to be seen and/or read.
• Targets potential customers already interested in your product or service.
• Can be viral in that inbound messaging, especially if beneficial to potential customer, might be shared across social media platforms.
• Is easy to implement as most companies already have infrastructure in place.

Inbound Marketing Toolkit is Relatively Simple

The tools for implementing an inbound marketing strategy are relatively simple, and most companies already have the basic infrastructure in place. In short, you can implement a powerful inbound marketing strategy with the following tools:

• Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Website—pretty much every company today has a website and some sort of presence on the Internet. But is that website optimized so that people who might be interested in your product or service can easily find it? Without SEO, most websites are lost and unvisited in the Internet ether. With SEO potential customers can find you by product, service, location, and any number of unique factors that can be tailored to draw likely customers to your website.
• Blog—Along with that SEO website, every company should have a blog, filled with well-written content relevant to your business. Not only should these blog posts be tailored with SEO, but they should also provide value to your potential customers. This can be as simple as providing information that the customer may not have known, but the goal is to get them interested in what your company has to say and offer, and introduce them to your brand.
• Social Media—With up to 70 percent of all Americans interconnected through at least one social media network, engaging with potential customers via social media is a crucial component of inbound marketing.

If you would like to learn more about inbound marketing, or are interested in implementing an inbound marketing strategy for your company, contact Moxxi Marketing. Our team has long been engaged with the evolution of online marketing, and successfully utilizes inbound marketing approaches that deliver optimal returns. Whether starting from scratch or working with an existing Internet presence, Moxxi Marketing will deliver a turbo-charged SEO website, blog and social media presence, and offers measurable tracking so that you can closely monitor the resultant increase in customer engagement. For a personal consultation, contact us today at 239.228.8837.