Do you have a limited digital marketing budget and you want to promote your business online on a long term basis?
If your reply is in yes then what option you are left with to reach your customers most effectively.
The answer is “Inbound Marketing”.
Inbound Marketing strategies are great in making repeat customers and statistics show that the probability of selling to a repeat customer is 60-70% while the probability of selling to a new customer is 5-10%.
It builds brand awareness and affinity in a very cost-effective manner.
So, before putting customers into attract-to-delight funnel, you need to prepare that funnel properly.
Let’s briefly discuss what inbound marketing is and what the actionable inbound marketing strategies for a startup and small business are.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound marketing is the approach to attract potential customers towards your business through your content and connecting with them naturally at points of customer interest.
Inbound Marketing covers every stage of the customer buying journey.
The ultimate goal of inbound marketing is customer satisfaction and more sales. To achieve this goal, you need to create great content, grab customer attention, provide a way for customers to engage with the content and develop trust.
At each stage of the customer touchpoint, you need a strategy to achieve the objectives mentioned above.
Let’s dive deep into the actionable phase of this process:
1. Publish Quality Content
Publishing quality content is by far the most effective and high ROI technique. Content can be in the form of blog posts/text, videos, infographics, case studies, white papers, interviews & podcasts.
Your website is the center point of your inbound marketing strategy. It establishes trust in eyes of customers by providing brand awareness, online customer support, testimonials, reviews & comments by customers, and other helpful material that can pave the way for conversion later.
Research shows that 55% of marketers prioritize blog content creation as a top inbound marketing strategy.
So, what type of content small businesses needs to create? It should be ‘Sales Focused Content’.
A great example is the FAQ page which answers frequently asked questions by customers. Product Specifications and ‘How it works’ Product Videos are also quite helpful.
2. Focus on Search Engine Optimization to Increase Organic Traffic
To get great organic traffic, you need top ranking for your website and this can be achieved through search engine optimization. Conversely, for better SEO you need great quality content.
Search Engine Optimization is a broad topic and has many advance forms, but for startups putting SEO basics right from the day, one will increase their chances of better ranking and getting more organic traffic.
3. Give Directions with Personalized Call-To-Action (CTA)
Getting a lot of traffic is not enough, traffic needs to convert too. Businesses with clear personalized Call-To-Actions (CTAs) can increase the chances of conversion 202% more than the businesses with simple CTAs. [Hubspot]
Customers need clear direction when they are on the homepage of your website or landing page.
Popular Calls-To-Action that small businesses can incorporate into their websites are:
- An incentive for first-time customers
- subscribe to newsletter
- Request for a product demo
- View a webinar
- Download product catalog
- Take advantage of a free offer
- Click for a free assessment
4. Use Social Media Feedback to Create Compelling Content
Startups can take new ideas for compelling content from their social media feedback.
Surely, first, you need to set up social media accounts on famous platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.) that are most suitable for your business, then post content in such a manner that you can urge the customer to provide feedback.
Surveys, polls, comparisons, short videos, blogs can get you desired feedback. You can use this feedback to prepare content for your new blog posts and can write on current topics that are trending among customers.
Social media can generate a lot of traffic if used wisely.
5. Engage Customers to Generate Leads
Once you generated a lead, now it time to engage and convert.
Well, it seems technical.
Simply, putting helpful information and easy navigation system on your website can increase customer retention time. Research shows that 80% of the customers take the experience as important as the products and services of a company.
A knowledgebase, community forum, customer loyalty program, referral programs, and discount offer popups are some examples of customer retention and engagement methods.
Web push notifications are can be used to implement the above mentions techniques.
6. Develop Trust by Showcasing Your Expertise
Among other inbound marketing strategies, guest posting on relevant websites is a great way to showcase your expertise.
You can take advantage of reputation & a large audience of other websites but care is needed here. You must provide something valuable for readers of that website. Reference from a good resource can develop trust and help to boost your traffic.
7. Attract Customers with a Free Digital Tool/Content Offer
Customers attract when they see a free tool or content offered to them in the form of a calculator, checklist, free eBook, free course or even a report or its template.
These free tools can increase awareness of your products and services along with solving customer problems and you can strategically place links to your important pages in these tools.
8. Provide Personalized Content to Subscribers
Personalized emails focusing on the needs and issues of customers can greatly improve your traffic.
By using analytics tools & understanding the demographics of customers, you can create brief customer profiles, and send them the focused personalized content.
Surprisingly, the response rate for such emails is huge and you are sure that you are attracting the right visitors.
Finally, inbound marketing strategies are long-lasting and customer-focused. They need a lot of hard work, time & patience, but results are long term and satisfying.